Handel / Wakim / Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Acis & Galatea CD

CPO's previous release with the soloists and ensembles of the Boston Early Music Festival was awarded two prestigious prizes. The recording of Charpentier's opera La Descente d'Orph?e aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs received the Grammy Award for the Best Opera Production in February 2015 and recently won the Klassik-Echo 2015, again for the Best Opera Recording of the Year. Prior to this double success, other productions by cpo and BEMF had been nominated for Gramophone Awards. In the category of the Best Opera Production these were Ariadne by Johann Georg Conradi and Th?s?e and Psych? by Jean-Baptiste Lully. In addition, Th?s?e and Psych? received nominations in the category honoring Baroque Vocal Works. Now the American ensemble has joined forces with successful soloists like Aaron Sheehan and Teresa Wakim for our production of Handel's opera Acis and Galatea in the version of 1718, which was composed for the landed estate of the Earl of Carnarvon and does not recycle music from the earlier version. Both Acis and Galatea and the cantata Sarei troppo felice heard here represent decisive turning points in Handel's career. The Italian cantata came at the beginning of the one and half decades spent by Handel in the service of various patrons. Acis and Galatea marks the highpoint of this phase and therefore, like the cantata before it, clearly renders recognizable the musical means available to him in the private ensembles of his employers. Moreover, Acis and Galatea contains the musical and textual seeds of the English oratorio, which after 1742 completely supplanted opera compositions.

1. Act I: Sinfonia 2. Act I: Oh, the Pleasures of the Plain 3. Act I: Accompagnato: Ye Verdant Plains 4. Act I: Aria: Hush, Ye Pretty Warbling Quire 5. Act I: Aria: Where Shall I Seek the Charming Fair 6. Act I: Recitative: Stay, Shepherd, Stay 7. Act I: Aria: Shepherd, What Art Thou Pursuing 8. Act I: Recitative: Lo! Here My Love 9. Act I: Aria: Love in Her Eyes Sits Playing 10. Act I: Recitative: Oh! Didst Thou Know the Pains of Absent Love 11. Act I: Aria: As When the Dove 12. Act I: Duet: Happy We! 13. Act II: Wretched Lovers 14. Act II: Accompagnato: I Rage! 15. Act II: Aria: O Ruddier Than the Cherry 16. Act II: Recitative: Whither, Fairest, Art Thou Running 17. Act II: Aria: Cease to Beauty to Be Suing 18. Act II: Aria: Would You Gain the Tender Creature 19. Act II: Recitative: His Hideous Love 20. Act II: Aria: Love Sounds Th'alarm 21. Act II: Aria: Consider, Fond Shepherd 22. Act II: Recitative: Cease, Oh Cease, Thou Gentle Youth 23. Act II: Trio: The Flocks Shall Leave 24. Act II: Accompagnato: Help, Galatea 25. Act II: Mourn, All Ye Muses 26. Act II: Aria: Must I My Acis Still Bemoan 27. Act II: Recitative: 'Tis Done 28. Act II: Aria: Heart, the Seat of Soft Delight 29. Act II: Galatea, Dry Thy Tears 30. Sarei Troppo Felice 31. Se Al Pensier Dar Mai Potro 32. Clori, Schernita Clori 33. Giusto Ciel Se Non Ho Sorte 34. Ah! Che Un Cieco Ho Per Guida