George Frideric Handel

In conjunction with the Orchestra’s 30th Anniversary Season, Music Director Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announce the launch of the ensemble’s own recording label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions. The label’s début release showcases the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in a live 1995 recording of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and a live 1991 recording of arias from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Ottone, Arianna, Radamisto and Agrippina. Hunt Lieberson had a long and fruitful relationship with McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque. The Berlioz is the last of seven acclaimed recordings she made with the orchestra and the first time she ever sang the full Berlioz song cycle in performance. Lorraine was in her element and the result was splendid. These incredibly moving performances are now available to a wide audience for the first time.

In more than two decades as its music director, Nicholas McGegan has established the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorale as the leading period-performance ensemble in America – and at the forefront of the 'historical' movement worldwide, thanks to notable appearances at such venues as Carnegie Hall, London Proms, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany, where McGegan has been artistic director since 1991. Born in England, he was educated at Oxford, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. In 2010, he was awarded an OBE for “services to music overseas". Other awards include an official 'Nicholas McGegan Day' declared by the Mayor of San Francisco to mark his 20th anniversary with Philharmonia Baroque.The next release from Philharmonia Baroque will be of Haydn's Symphonies.

For the second Glossa Portrait release the spotlight falls upon the soprano Roberta Invernizzi. It was the inspired choice of Fabio Bonizzoni to involve the Milanese singer in his series of Le Cantate Italiane di Handel, and Invernizzi appeared on no less than five of the seven discs in that greatly-admired series. This 2-disc Portrait draws on those recordings to highlight the delicious characterisations of Invernizzi in Handel’s vivid and visceral portrayals of nymphs and goddesses such as Diana, Cloris, Amarilis, Lidia and Fili, Arcadian characters one and all but nonetheless human in personality.

Roberta Invernizzi is gifted with an ability to master the technical, expressive and temperamental challenges set by Baroque composers such as Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Alessandro Scarlatti and she has also added a scintillating theatrical verve to many of the incursions into Neapolitan opera buffa in the company of Antonio Florio.

These recordings are great rarities and date from 1956-1959.

This magnificent collection features the some of the greatest opera stars of all time:

Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Renée Fleming, Andrea Bocelli Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras.

With a carefully chosen selection of perennially popular arias, duets and choruses, this enchanting collection creates the perfect introduction to opera.

With 40 tracks and over 2½ hours of music this collection is outstanding value for money.

Includes Pavarotti’s classic recording of the most popular opera aria of all, Puccini’s ‘Nessun dorma’.

Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is now released on CD as part of Dynamic’s baroque series. Originally released on DVD in July 2010, this production featured Sara Mingardo, Ruth Rosique and Atonio Abete in the leading roles.

Here is a CD that places imagination and instrumental mastery at the service of superb music.

For the main work on this album of American recordings made at the time of the Great War, Bach’s Double Concerto in D minor (slightly abridged to fit on three 78rpm sides, Kreisler is joined by the Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist. The Appendix features three tracks with soprano Geraldine Farrar and the only surviving recording of Kreisler-as-pianist, playing Dvorak’s Humoresque.

Producer and Audio Restoration Producer: Ward Marston

Handel has the reputation of a free thinker regarding the composition of his suites. His keyboard works combine a formal freedom with a rhetorical mastery in a way that undoubtedly reflects his improvisatory gifts, for which he was famous. The music in these pieces is very lively in its invention, and exhibits an enthusiasm in allying the structure with very different styles. The large-scale works of 1720, all completely different from one another, are a synthesis inspired by elements of the German and Italian styles. He seems to have had little interest in the form of the suite per se. Formal unity is most often achieved through common thematic use.

The diverse origins of the music make the collection of suites a microcosm of Handel’s eclectic style. Following his highly acclaimed recording of the Johann Mattheson harpsichord suites, Cristiano Holtz presents a splendid interpretation of the Handel suites.