As Steals the Morn

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Handel was one of the first Baroque composers to invest his talents in the tenor voice and here this unique English legacy is recalled. Through his shading, dynamic range and commitment to the... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2008 More…

Release Date: 2nd Apr 2007
Catalogue No: HMU907422
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 77 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

11th June 2007
Gramophone Magazine

May 2007

Editor's Choice
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2008

Vocal Award Winner

Handel: Alceste: Act IV, Enjoy the sweet Elysian grove

Work length5:37

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Handel: Where'er you walk (from Semele)

Work length5:17

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Handel: Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno: Part I, Urne voi

Work length3:32

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Handel: Tamerlano: Act I, Scene 1, Forte e lieto

Work length6:08

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Handel: Tamerlano: Act III, Scene 10, Oh per me lieto, avventuroso giorno!

Work length3:53

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Handel: Tamerlano: Act III, Scene 10, Figlia mia / Tu, spietato

Work length6:06

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Handel: Samson: Act I, Scene 2, Total eclipse

Work length4:38

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Handel: Samson: Act II, Scene 2, Did love constrain thee?

Work length0:32

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Handel: Samson: Act II, Scene 2, Your charms to ruin led the way

Work length3:18

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Handel: Samson: Act III, Scene 1, Let but that spirit / Then shall I make

Work length0:40

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Handel: Samson: Act III, Scene 1, Thus when the sun from's wat'ry bed

Work length5:32

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Handel: Rodelinda: Act III, Scene 6, Fatto inferno

Work length3:23

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Handel: Rodelinda: Act III, Scene 6, Pastorello d'un povero armento

Work length5:15

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Handel: Esther: Act I, Scene 2, Tune your harps

Work length4:19

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Handel: Jephtha: Act II, Scene 2, Heav'n smiles once more

Work length0:32

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Handel: Jephtha: Act II, Scene 2, His mighty arm

Work length5:59

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Handel: Jephtha: Act III, Scene 1, Waft her, angels

Work length5:43

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Handel: L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, Part III: As steals the morn

Work length6:36

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About
Reviews
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About

Favourites, Handel Operas

Katherine focuses on the hugely prolific composer's stage-works in this week's Favourites.

Awards, Discs of the Year

17th December 2007

Browse all further reading about this product

A dramatic collection of solo arias and scenes for tenor drawn for oratorio and opera - some of Handel's most lovely music, brilliantly performed by Mark Padmore and The English Concert, led by Andrew Manze. The concluding duet As steals the morn with soprano Lucy Crowe is an added bonus.

Reviews

May 2008

Handel was one of the first Baroque composers to invest his talents in the tenor voice and here this unique English legacy is recalled. Through his shading, dynamic range and commitment to the text, Padmore seduces the listener.

2010

Underpinned by Andrew Manze's unobtrusive and warm-hearted English Concert, Mark Padmore uses his extraordinary diction and whispering chamber-like intimacy to remind us that the most exalted tenor arias from Handel's operas and oratorios can achieve true potency out of context.
Favourites like 'Where'er you walk' and 'Waft her, angels' appear to grow out of this varied programme without the sense of being lifted for a compilation; Padmore is a master of taste, restraint and unassuming gesture. 'Pastorello d'un povero' is a touching vignette and the soft singing elsewhere contributes to a concentrated and affecting juxtaposition of human vice and virtue in the Tamerlano scenas. As throughout, Padmore saves the greatest emotional impact for the da capos where coloration reaches new heights.
Indeed, it is the joy in conveying the emotional core of each situation which marks out this disc. Graphic dramatic effects abound (not least the Sultan's gradual giving up the ghost in 'Figlia mia' with a croaking realism) but this is a disc which celebrates Handel's capacity for incisive human observation, achieved more through reflective means than showpiece coloratura.
It's a persuasive and thoughtful approach.
Padmore's lowest register can seem a touch insubstantial but this is a small gripe in a disc boasting – as its parting shot – the duet 'As steals the morn', a performance with the fine Lucy Crowe at her most alluring.

August 2014

Padmore's plangent tone and elegant phrasing make him one of the most in-demand Handel tenors of today, particularly acclaimed as Samson and Jephtha, and in Messiah; this BBC Music Award-winning collection includes arias from these three and more. Classy accompaniment from The English Concert under Andrew Manze.

Tenors are fighter pilots - dashing, heroic, unhappy out of the limelight - and Padmore is an ace among them, soaring through this disc on a velvet voice in various Handelian guises...His blinded Samson is harrowingly persuasive in 'Total Eclipse', he shows off impressive no-breath acrobatics in Jephtha and dramatises outrageously in the Tamerlano extract.

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Contents

Favourites, Handel Operas

Awards, Discs of the Year

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