Handel: Arcadian Duets / Various: Lamenti

"The chamber duets that Handel wrote at various periods of his life are still among his best-kept secrets. Never one to under-exploit his musical ideas, he quarried from many of them for larger works, most famously Messiah, where the reuse of music originally associated with erotic love would not have bothered 18th-century audiences one iota. The cosmopolitan cast, most of them Baroque specialists, all have pure-toned, agile voices and show proper care for blend and balance. Beyond that, they relish the expressive potential of the amorous texts and Handel's piercing dissonances, abetted by the varied colours and light, springing rhythms of the continuo group.Handel-singing surely doesn't come much better than that. (BBC Music Magazine on Duets)

"This all-star cast includes the ravishing Natalie Dessay as Monteverdi's forsaken nymph, Véronique Gens, a proud, desolate Ariadne, and Joyce DiDonato, who sings Octavia's farewell with extraordinary dramatic passion. Much of the interest of this disc lies in its subtleties, Emmanuelle Haïm highlighting telling details..." BBC Music Magazine, November 2008 ***** (on Lamenti)

"A starry host of singers bring their talents to bear on Haïm's programme" Gramophone Magazine, January 2009 (on Lamenti

During the first half of the 17th century the Lamenti became a rite of passage for all self-respecting composers of vocal music, challenging them to develop new ways of depicting extreme emotions and move their listeners to tears - as Monteverdi, Cavalli, Strozzi, Landi, Carissimi & Cesti had done. Hundred years later, Handel relie on the same kind of expressive interplay between voices to convey pain to his introspective Arcadian Duets