Composer: George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi
Performer: Grace Davidson, Bojan Čičić
Orchestra: Academy of Ancient Music
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Signum
Catalogue: SIGCD537
Release: 2018
Size: 1.21 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Handel: Silete venti, HWV 242
01. Sinfonia e recitativo
02. Andante ma larghetto
03. Accompagnato
04. Andante – Allegro
05. Presto
Handel: Gloria in Excelsis Deo, HWV deest
06. Gloria in excelsis Deo
07. Et in terra pax
08. Laudamus te, benedicimus te
09. Domine Deus, rex coelestis
10. Qui tollis peccata mundi
11. Quoniam tu solus sanctus
Handel: Salve Regina, HWV 241
12. Salve, regina, mater misericordiae
13. Ad te clamamus exsules filii Evae
14. Eia, ergo, advocate nostra
15. O Clemens, O pie
Vivaldi: Nulla in mundo pax sincera, RV630
16. Nulla in mundo pax sincera
17. Blando colore oculos mundus decepit
18. Spirat anguis
19. Alleluia
Signum Records are proud to present the debut orchestral recording from Grace Davidson, one of the UK’s leading British sopranos specialising in Baroque music. She is joined by some of Europe’s leading Baroque musicians from the Academy of Ancient Music to perform a selection of works by Handel and Vivaldi, with performaces led by violinist Bojan Čičić under artistic director Joseph Crouch. Grace won the Early Music Prize while studying singing at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Since then, she has worked with the leading Baroque ensembles of our day, singing under the batons of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh, Philippe Herreweghe and Harry Christophers. Her discography includes a decade of CDs with The Sixteen, many of which feature her as soloist – Handel’s Jeptha (as Angel), Dixit Dominus, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Pianto della Madonna, and the Lutheran Masses of Bach.
English soprano Grace Davidson is a member of The Sixteen who has also appeared on film soundtrack recordings. Here she makes her solo orchestral debut with a logical program bound together by the fact that all the music is extremely virtuosic, and on top of that little-known. Particularly interesting is the Gloria, HWV deest, of Handel; the only reason this counterpart to Vivaldi’s famed Gloria, RV 589, is not better known is that it was rediscovered only in 2001. Start your sampling with its opening movement to hear both the recording’s strengths and its more questionable aspects. In the former column is the engineering, getting a nice, bright clarity from the All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London. And likewise the music, so redolent of the competitive vocal atmosphere in which both Handel and Vivaldi worked. The venerable Academy of Ancient Music under Joseph Crouch is a good fit for Davidson here with its light, restrained affect. And it is easy to imagine Davidson in the small chapels for which several of these works were probably composed. Which brings you to the issue you’ll have to evaluate for yourself: Davidson is a chamber-sized soprano, and it’s easy to imagine these works sung with more power. In the Handel Gloria, note how she takes the runs precisely, blooming into vibrato only on longer notes. It’s a chamber cantata sound in music that’s a bit operatic, although sacred, and it may or may not ring your bell. In either case, the album is worth your time and money for bringing these neglected vocal works out of the shadows.