Handel: Athalia - Overture

Handel's overtures had an independent life almost from their inception and the practice of performing them on keyboard instruments has a similarly long pedigree, beginning with a number of transcriptions made by the composer himself. Keyboard specialist John Kitchen virtuosically evokes Handel's orchestral palette in the welter of timbres and colours which he summons forth from Jacob Kirckman's 1755 harpsichord, a classic instrument from the very apex of the English harpsichord-building tradition.

"His playing is exemplary" Early Music Review, February 2009

With more than seventy vocal works for the stage and the concert hall - mainly the fruit of his Italian opera period in London and his imposing series of oratorios - Handel left us as many instrumental overtures. In these is crystallized his art of immediate expression through his undeniable creative ability in translating images into sounds, in creating by genuine musical metaphors and highly personal means of pictorial suggestion, true-to-life or psychological portraits inspired by History and the Old Testament. The Montreal Baroque Orchestra, under the stylish direction of Joël Thiffault, deliver some of Handel’s most telling overtures in all their theatrical and dramatic design.

Naturally Handel features a selection of instrumental overtures from operas and oratorios by one the best-known baroque composers. Immensely popular during his lifetime, Handel’s operas and oratorios contain some of his most beautiful music. Naturally Handel features suites from the composer’s operas Alcina, Il Pastor Fido, Lotario,and Ottone, and his oratorios Athalia, Jephta, and Judas Maccabaeus — works composed between 1712 and 1752. Also included is the duet for soprano and tenor, “Happy We”, from Handel’s pastoral masque, Acis and Galatea. Composed in 1718, this duet shows another side of the composer, one of transparent lightness, refined sensuality and tenderness.