René Jacobs - Handel: Saul (2005)

01 Feb, 13:54
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Artist: René Jacobs
Title: Handel: Saul
Year Of Release: 2005
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Genre: Classical
Quality: FLAC (image + .cue, log, scans)
Total Time: 2:29:59
Total Size: 792 MB
WebSite: Album Preview

Tracklist:

Disc: 1
1. Allegro - Larghetto - Allegro - Andante Larghetto
2. How excellent Thy name, o Lord
3. An infant raised by thy command/Along the monster atheist strode
4. The youth inspired by Thee, o Lord/How excellent Thy name, o Lord
5. He comes, he comes! - O God-like youth!/Behold, o King, the brave, victorious youth
6. O king, your favors with delight/Oh early piety!
7. What abject thoughts a prince can have!/Yet think, on whom this honour you bestow
8. Birth and fortune I despise!
9. Go on, illustrious pair!/While yet thy tide of blood runs high
10. 16. Recitative (Saul, Merab): Thou, Merab, First In Birth, Be First In Honour - 17. Air (Merab): My Soul Rejects The Thought With Scorn - 18. Air (Michal): See, With What A Scornful Air - 19. Air (Michal): Ah, Lovely Youth, Wast Thou Designed
11. Andante allegro/Already see the daughters of the land/Welcome, welcome, mighty king!
12. What do I hear?/David his ten thousand slew/To him ten tousands/With rage I shall start burst his praises to hear
13. Imprudent women!/Feel rage and black despair possessed
14. This but the smallest part of Harmony/By thee this universal frame
15. Racked with infernal pains/O Lord, whose mercies numberless
16. Largo/'Tis all in vain, his fury still continues
17. A serpent, in my bosom warmed/Has he escaped my rage?
18. Capricioius Man
19. O filial piety!/No, cruel father, no!
20. O Lord, whose providence/Preserve him for the Glory of Thy name
21. Envy! eldest born of hell!
22. Ah! dearest friend/But sooner Jordan' stream, I swear
23. Oh strange vicissitude!/Such haughty beauties rather move

Disc: 2
1. My father comes/Has thou obeyed my orders
2. Sin not, o king, against the youth/As great Jehovah lives/From cities stormed, and battles won
3. Appear, my friend/Your words, o king, my loyal heart/Yes, he shall wed my daughter!
4. A father's will has authorised my love/O fairest of ten thousand fair/Is there a man
5. Largo - Allegro
6. Thy father is as cruel/At persecution I can laugh
7. Whom dost thou seek/No. no let the guilty tremble
8. Mean as he was, he is my brother now/Author of peace, who canst controul
9. Allegro
10. The time at length is come
11. Where is the son of Jesse? Oh fatal consequence of Rage
12. Wretch that I am/'Tis said, here lives a woman
13. With me what would'st thou/Infernal spirits
14. Why hast thou forced me from the realms of peace
15. Allegro
16. Whence comest thou? Impious wretch, of race accurst!
17. Grave
18. Mourn, Israel
19. Oh let it not in Gath be heard
20. From this unhappy day
21. Brave Jonathan his bow never drew/Eagles were not so swift as they
22. In sweetest harmony they lived!/O fatal day!/Ye men of Judah, weep no more!
23. Gird on thy sword, thou man of might

Performers:

Henry Waddington - Bass
Finnur Bjarnason - Tenor
Michael Slattery - Tenor
Rosemary Joshua - Soprano
Emma Bell - Soprano
Lawrence Zazzo - Countertenor
Jeremy Ovenden - Tenor
Gidon Saks - Baritone
RIAS Kammerchor
Concerto Köln
René Jacobs - Conductor

There have been great Sauls -- Charles Mackerras' on Archiv and Peter Neumann on Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm. There have been acceptable Sauls -- Paul McCreesh's on Archiv and Mogens Wöldike's on Vanguard and Philip Ledger's on Virgin. There have been deeply flawed Sauls -- John Eliot Gardiner's on Philips and Nikolaus Harnoncourt's on Teldec. There have even been downright poor Sauls, but they're not worth mentioning. ThisSaul by René Jacobs with the Concerto Köln and the RIAS-Kammerchor is easily as good as the best and maybe even better. Jacobs has done splendid things with Handel in his Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo but his Saul is as good and maybe even better. Jacobs seems to go even deeper into this work's fusion of the grandly public and the deeply private, of the enormously heroic and the immensely tragic, of the entirely political and the absolutely personal. His cast is superb from top -- and there are a lot of female and male sopranos in Saul -- to bottom -- bass Gidon Saks is nearly in the same league as Fischer-Dieskau was in the otherwise mediocre Harnoncourt recording. The RIAS-Kammerchor is supple and strong, the Concerto Köln is powerful, sensitive, and colorful, and Harmonia Mundi's sound is clear and warm. With arguably better sound than Mackerras and possibly a better cast than Neumann, Jacobs may have the best Saul available. -- James Leonard

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