Sacred raptures cheer my breast Sacred raptures cheer my breast

The English Concert’s annual Handel tour brings Solomon conducted by Harry Bicket to the US beginning Sunday March 5. In anticipation, Chris’s Cache offers Solomon plus four other oratorios by the master:  Belshazzar, Hercules, Saul and Jephtha, all via broadcasts for which I feel a personal connection.

Fast and furious Fast and furious

A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.

A river runs through it A river runs through it

I can think of no other case that resembles Handel’s complex relationship to the story—derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses—of the ill-fated love between the shepherd Acis and the sea nymph Galatea.

Mission statement Mission statement

Can it be nearly a quarter-century ago that an Italian mezzo-soprano in her early twenties recorded her first recital?