While it’s late for the Handel Anniversary year, this Feast
is very welcome. This is the latest instalment in Martini’s
Naxos Handel series from Frankfurt: other releases include Solomon,
Hercules,
Tobit
and Semele.
It won’t please Anglophone purists but I found much of it very
enjoyable.
The disc gains hugely from being a live performance, though
the audience is so well behaved that you would never guess it.
There is a good sense of to-and-fro and there’s creative energy
coming from the audience: never did it feel stilted. Above all,
Martini’s direction is flexible and always interesting. He is
helped by a band that responds convincingly to every nuance.
The juicy orchestral sounds add an entirely distinctive air
to this performance, something I was very happy to live with.
Timotheus’ harp solo in track 4 and the exciting figurations
when the king “seizes a flambeau” are only two examples. Martini
propels the action forwards so that the pace never flags and
attention never wavers.
Happily, the solo singing is just as good. Gerlinde Sämann’s
soprano is bright and clear, almost in the Emma Kirkby category.
She responds well to the inflections (and frequent repetitions)
in the text, such as in track 19 (The Prince, unable to conceal
his pain). Klaus Mertens is a steady, dependable bass, who
manages beauty in the stiller moments but is vigorous and agile
for Timotheus’ call of revenge. Knut Schoch produces lovely
tone, but he falls prey to the set’s greatest weakness: the
frequently poor pronunciation of English. He is the first to
sound heavily accented, but far more serious is the laxity of
the chorus. Listening to them sounds like wading through treacle
at times, with too many words lost in the aural fog. This is
a terrible shame as their sound is quite attractive, though
no-one would describe it as lithe. For that reason I can’t really
recommend this disc, especially in light of the strong competition.
You don’t need to have a group of native English speakers for
this music but you do need to have clearly audible words which
match the transparent orchestral textures. With this set I needed
a text to follow, and matters were made worse by the fact that
Naxos do not provide one. Not all is lost in a worthy performance,
but this shouldn’t be your final choice for Alexander’s Feast.
Simon Thompson
see also review by John
Sheppard
Gerlinde Sämann (soprano); Knut Schoch (tenor); Klaus Mertens (bass);
Junge Kantorei 
