Händel Goes Wild

1. Sinfonia – From Alcina, act 3
2. Venti turbine – Aria di Rinaldo, from Rinaldo
3. O sleep, why thost thou leave me – Aria di Semele, from Semele
4. Vivaldi: Concerto in g-minor (RV 157)
5. Where’er you walk – Aria di Semele, from Semele
6. Cara sposa – Aria di Rinaldo from Rinaldo
7. Sinfonia – Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from Solomon
8. Pena tiranna – Aria di Dardano, from Amadigi di Gaula
9. Piangerò la sorte mia – Aria di Cleopatra, from Giulio Cesare
10. Improvisation – Canario
11. Verdi prati – Aria di Ruggiero, from Alcina
12. Tu del ciel ministro eletto – Aria di Belezza, from Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verita
13. Mi lusinga il dolce affetto – Aria di Ruggiero, from Alcina
14. Lascio ch’io pianga – Aria di Almirena, from Alcina
15. Ombra mai fu – Aria di Serse, from Serse

With Händel Goes Wild Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata once again embark on some musical time travel, this time in the company of soprano Nuria Rial, countertenor Valer Sabadus and jazz clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi. The album features sumptuously reimagined versions of some of Handel’s most celebrated operatic arias. “All baroque composers used strict forms,” explains Christina Pluhar, “but those forms would also allow the singers and musicians to improvise and add ornament freely.” Highlighting the composer’s dynamism and temperament, she says: “Handel must have been pretty wild himself.”

George Frideric Handel now joins Purcell, Monteverdi and Cavalli on the list of composers who have inspired an album by Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata.

The title of this new album refers first and foremost to the imaginative treatment his music receives from L’Arpeggiata, but Christina Pluhar reminds us that “Handel must have been pretty wild himself,” quoting this famous anecdote: “At a rehearsal for his opera Ottone, when the celebrated soprano Francesca Cuzzoni refused to sing the aria ‘Falsa immagine’, he became so furious that he grabbed her round the waist and threatened to throw her out of the window.”

Fortunately, the ‘wildness’ on this album is purely pleasurable. Händel Goes Wild is in the beguiling vein of Music For A While – Improvisations on Henry Purcell, released by L’Arpeggiata on Erato in 2014. Praising that album, BBC Music Magazine wrote: “Long experienced in fusing Baroque with jazz-inspired performance styles, L'Arpeggiata's approach breathes new life into the Restoration composer, whose ground basses are akin to riffs, his melodies folk-like in their raw simplicity ... Baroque instruments and a jazz-style combo mix to intriguing effect”