Review by JJ April 2, 2008 (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
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Right off, the music is seductive. It immediately works its charm on this remarkable pure DSD recording from the first notes of this captivating Opus 4 to the last. All breathes naturally here in perfect balance between the instrumental soloist and the orchestra. Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music offer us a unique disc where respiration and ease mix in an ideal fusion that is both lively and vibrant. Vibrant in its sparkling colors, but also in its apt phrasing where virtuosity is used to communicate, and not, as is often the case elsewhere, simply as sterile exercise. Richard Egarr’s work is all the more exciting in that it does not make these works stuffy, soulless. On the contrary, it delightfully respects these scores that Händel intended for use during intermissions for his great choral works and that he himself played. The result at the time must have been astonishing, as Madame Pendarves on March 15, 1735 accounts: “My sister told you that Mr. Händel played here for three hours without stopping: I am sorry you were not here, for no other entertainment could have been better, save his organ concert in Esther, where he played two concertos that are the most beautiful works I have ever heard.” There is no more to add, if not that this must-have SACD easily equals the absolute reference from the 1970s to be found in the four volumes of organ concertos performed by Daniel Chorzempa and Jaap Schröder, it too on SACD.
Jean-Jacques Millo Translation Lawrence Schulman
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