The initial releases
on the Eloquence label, Universal’s
answer to Naxos, were almost all of
very basic repertoire. Though there
were some real gems to be found, such
as the Curzon/Vienna Octet version of
Schubert’s Trout Quintet, coupled with
the Death and the Maiden Quartet (467
417-2), they came with the very barest
details of the music and devoid of notes.
As for the baroque repertoire, the original
Eloquence catalogue contains decent
but dated versions of Bach’s Brandenburg
Concertos and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,
all from I Musici, and more recommendable
discs of eight concertos from Vivaldi’s
L’Estro Armonico under Neville
Marriner (467 432-2), of music by Telemann,
including the so-called ‘Water Music’
directed by Reinhard Goebel (469 664-2)
and Goebel’s version of Bach’s Musical
Offering rated by many as the best
available (469 680-2). The best Handel
on offer was the Sutherland/Bonynge
Messiah.
The intervention of
Decca’s Australian wing changed matters
with first a trickle and now almost
a flood of reissues complete with decent
sets of notes. At first available only
as more expensive imports, these Australian
Eloquence CDs are now becoming more
widely available on-line and in the
shops. A
full catalogue is available.
Tim Perry on this website
in April strongly recommended a 2-CD
Eloquence set of Schumann’s Concertante
Works (442 8410) but there are also
some excellent versions of baroque music
to be had. One of the undoubted highlights
from this source is the current disc
of Handel’s Italian Cantatas – one of
those CDs that I put on my shopping
list twenty years ago, after reading
enthusiastic reviews and hearing parts
of it on Radio 3, but never got round
to buying. Now the reissue is almost
self-recommending: Emma Kirkby in delicious
music and in prime voice, accompanied
by the AAM under Christopher Hogwood,
all at bargain price. I snapped it up
as soon as I saw it – I’d probably happily
listen to Emma Kirkby singing the telephone
directory – and so will many others.
With one possible exception,
these are early works, written during
Handel’s sojourn in Italy from 1706
to 1710, but if we were to scorn the
works of this period we would be deprived
of some fine music - Dixit Dominus
to name but one.
The crisply-played
opening instrumental sonata of
Tu fedel? – a 55-bar miniature-overture
– serves as an excellent curtain-raiser
for this cantata and sets the tone for
the whole disc. When Emma Kirkby enters,
the seal is set on the enterprise; the
clarity of her singing is matched by
the accompaniment and by the recording.
She does not have to indulge in histrionics
to convey the point of the words – if
I have any criticism, it is that she
might have put a little more venom into
her scorn of the faithless Fileno who
boasts of being faithful and true to
her and a hundred others. ("Cento
belle ami, Fileno, e poi vanti aver
in seno un constante e fido cor.")
Margherita Durstanti, who probably first
sang this cantata, was known for expressing
her fiery, spirited temperament in her
singing. But then I am reminded that
revenge is a dish best served cold and
that the tone of the whole cantata is
summed up in the final section, where
she acknowledges that she cannot force
Fileno to change ("Se non ti piace
amarmi, forzar no poss’io") and
resolves to leave him and look elsewhere
("Si, crudel, ti lascierò,
novo amante troverò"). I
have not heard Helen Watts version of
this cantata on another Eloquence CD
of Handel and Scarlatti Cantatas (461
596-2) but I should be very surprised
if it proved superior to the Kirkby.
Mi palpita il cor
was probably written soon after Handel’s
arrival in London, ‘borrowed’ with a
new opening from an earlier work composed
in Italy. It exists in three versions,
of which the one for soprano and oboe
(HWV132b, though the booklet does not
specify) is performed here. Here Michel
Piguet’s oboe makes an excellent foil
to Kirkby’s delightful singing. Again
one could imagine a more impassioned
performance but that would militate
against the spirit of the music: Handel
is aiming to impress with the beauty
of his music rather than express profound
emotion.
A CD of these two cantatas,
albeit one using a different version
of Mi palpita, for alto and flute,
coupled with three other Handel cantatas,
on the Tall Poppies label (TP173) was
reviewed with reservations by Robert
Hugill and with different reservations
by Jonathan Woolf on this website. I
cannot imagine from their reviews that
they would prefer that CD to this, even
forgetting the considerable price differential
in favour of the Eloquence.
The same qualities
are to be found in the other cantatas.
In the final work, sometimes referred
to by the alternative title Il consiglio,
good advice, detachment is almost mandatory
– the text is, after all, a didactic
one, by Cardinal Pamphili. The lover,
drawn like a moth to the flame, is warned
by the example of Icarus who flew too
near to the sun; the wings which his
father Daedalus had joined with wax
melted, he fell into the sea and drowned.
(If you want to jolt some long-forgotten
Latin into life, look at Vergil’s wonderful
account of this story in Æneid
VI.14ff. or Ovid’s in Book VIII of Metamorphoses.)
The warning is clearly spelled out:
there is only one Daedalus – molti
gli Icari son, Dedalo un solo –
the rest of us had better not fly too
high for fear of a fall. This is perhaps
the most profound of these cantatas
but here, too, the music’s attractions
do not lie in its profundity: the fluttering
accompaniment to the opening aria, matching
the moth’s struggle in the flame is
about as profound as it gets. This is
not ‘great’ Handel but it is well worth
hearing in such excellent performances.
Both vocal and instrumental
contributions may be labelled ‘authentic’
but this is not the kind of authenticity
that intrudes on our modern enjoyment
of the music. By 1984 the worst excesses
of period-performance – ornamenting
everything that moves in Handel and
his contemporaries – had passed. Emma
Kirkby, whose voice is particularly
well suited to this repertoire, lightly
ornaments her notes where appropriate
and the accompaniment is equally stylish
and accomplished. The recording is more
than fit for purpose, with soloist and
instrumentalists clear but not too forward
and set in a suitably chamber-like ambience.
The booklet lists the
opening words of each section of each
piece (twenty-two tracks for the four
cantatas overall) and the informative
booklet contains a summary of each piece
– Anthony Hicks’s notes from the full-price
original issue – but the summaries could
have been more detailed and there are
no texts. Kirkby’s diction is so pure
that anyone with a decent command of
Italian will not have much problem deciphering
the words; nevertheless, in going one
better than the European-sourced Eloquence
CDs, why not go two better and emulate
Naxos, who almost always provide full
texts and translations, as also do Hyperion
on their bargain Helios reissues? The
score of Tu fedel? is available
online
as an adobe file at but I haven’t been
able to find anything else. (Mi palpita
and Alpestre monte are, in any
case, given only in fragmentary form
in the kind of older scores which appear
on the web; only recently have complete
manuscript versions of these come to
light.) The text of Tra
le fiamme is available
at though attributed there to ‘anonimo’.
Another small complaint:
nowhere are the HWV catalogue numbers
of these cantatas given; I had to look
them up. These are, however, very small
complaints to set against the great
virtues of this CD.
Those looking for more
excellent recordings from this source
will not regret buying Bach Cantatas
82, 159 and 170 with Janet Baker, etc,
the Academy of St Martin and Neville
Marriner (476 268-4). Also try Kirkby/AAM/Hogwood
in Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate,
etc. (476 746-0) and Mozart Arias (476
745-9); also the Kirkby/Rooley Purcell
Songbook (476 746-7) and An Elizabethan
Songbook (476 746-6). The Eloquence
CD of Couperin’s Leçons de
Ténèbres also received
high praise when it was first issued
at full price as recently as 2000. (Véronique
Gens/Les Talens Lyriques, 476 245-4)
Many of these have received strong recommendations
from other reviewers on musicweb.
Finally, I note that
I am not the first to have reviewed
this Handel disc for musicweb: I see
that Robert Hugill was enthusiastic
about it in November
2005, but a reminder of its virtues
now might not come amiss. I agree with
just about everything that Robert Hugill
says, except that I think that the version
of Mi palpita is HWV132b – he
thinks it is 132a.
Brian Wilson
Emma Kirkby (soprano) 
