Anyone scanning a playlist or CD rack and seeing this album might easily conclude that it comprised an anthology of arias by little-known heroic figures in Handel's operas. There are lots of Handel aria collections on the market, some of them delving into the more obscure corners of his output, but Handel's Unsung Heroes is something else again. Although it has top-rank vocal soloists in soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice, and countertenor Iestyn Davies, the unsung heroes involved are the instrumentalists who ...
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Anyone scanning a playlist or CD rack and seeing this album might easily conclude that it comprised an anthology of arias by little-known heroic figures in Handel's operas. There are lots of Handel aria collections on the market, some of them delving into the more obscure corners of his output, but Handel's Unsung Heroes is something else again. Although it has top-rank vocal soloists in soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice, and countertenor Iestyn Davies, the unsung heroes involved are the instrumentalists who took the often colorful and brilliant solos in Handelian opera. The album traces the careers of several specific players of Handel's time, not even footnotes in the history books, and there's something moving in reading about their travails and seeing their work recognized at a distance of nearly three centuries. There are a few substantial arias, but much of the program is made up of instrumental selections -- sinfonias, marches, a passacaille -- or shorter vocal pieces in which...
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