Ricercar Consort / Pierlot / Choeur De Chambre De - Passion-Resurrection - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Ricercar Consort - Les Plaisirs de la Table [COMPACT DISCS] Boxed Set date 11/11/2008

Following their acclaimed recording of Handel's Rodelinda (BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month, Gramophone Editor's Choice), The English Concert and Harry Bicket continue their Handel series with a superb soloist line-up including Sophie Bevan, Iestyn Davies, Ashley Riches, Hugo Hymas and Lucy Crowe. Starting with an unusual verbal altercation between an Angel and Lucifer, Handel's La Resurrezione is an extraordinary retelling of the three days between Christ's death and resurrection which is unlike any other Passion or Oratorio. This journey centers around women, Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleophas, in a way that seems very modern, and which mirrors the ambiguities of their feelings in music that is completely original in concept and orchestration. The journey from grief, through hope, to love is wonderfully depicted. The message seems to be that grief is the price we pay for love; and that should be part of the narrative of our lives, not the defining moment.

Only few testimonies provide us any details about this now little known but once esteemed composer. Born in Coburg, 1735, Anton Schweitzer died 1787 in Gotha, where he had settled following the Weimar palace fire in 1774. Regrettably, only relatively few manuscripts have survived. Some of the works recorded here (which comprise almost the entire existing church music) have been preserved in several copies, which were recently found in different archives in Thuringia. This recording shows us a colorful virtuoso music of an unjustly forgotten composer. The works on this are world premiere recordings.