Search - George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Helbich, Ulrike Andersen :: Handel - Te Deum in D major HWV 283 · Te Deum in A major HWV 282 / U. Andersen · Dixon · Mields · M. Wilde · Helbich

Scholars Be Darned, This Is Great Handel!

06/27/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Some reviewers have not been kind to this recording, but then they also begin by saying the Detttingen Te Deum is not top-drawer Handel. I've loved this work since I heard it on one of the notoriously worst recordings ever made, an old Nonesuch disc from the early 60s. The over-prominent and disastrously out-of-tune oboes and nasal mumblings of the alto soloist alone made this a party album par excellence. Since then there has been an excellent DG Archiv recording by Stephen Preston, I believe-- never transferred to CD--that would make a good candidate for reissue.



The current recording isn't quite in that league, but it is very decent, doing maybe less well by the martial strains that begin this celebratory music than by the somber "Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints." Here, Handel mourns the dead of the Battle of Dettingen, an overwhelming British victory in the War of the Austrian Succession. When the soloists intone "We believe that Thou shalt come to be our judge," Handel uses the two trumpets alone, brillant voiced, to suggest the Day of Judgment, but it is not an exciting End of Times as in Verdi, Berlioz, et al. but a very solemn affair indeed and as moving as anything the master penned, I think. And the martial music Handel writes is wonderfully thrilling throughout.



This disc offers the added bonus of a premiere recording of the Te Deum in A, written almost twenty years before the Dettingen Te Deum. It seems like a study for the later work, especially in its now tender, now bubbly writing for the woodwinds that recalls the Handel of the operas. A highpoint of this piece is the moving "To Thee all angels cry aloud," sung compellingly by the tenor on this recording.



Concerto Polacco play well for Wolfgang Helbich, and the German choir dispatch the English text with very few bits of questionable diction. The soloists are all competent, and the bass Chris Dixon, who has some of the best music in the Dettingen Te Deum, is more than that. The main criticism that can be lodged against these performances is that the somber music is more convincing than the exciting stuff; surely it is a little subdued compared to my benchmark, the Preston recording. The sound, while good, is a bit variable, as if the engineers had placed the microphones a bit differently over the course of the long recording session.



But I think the music will win you over. The Dettingen Te Deum often reminds me of the Handel of the Messiah, written around the same time, and if Handel never reaches the magnificent levels of invention he does in the Messiah, he often comes close enough to make this a vintage work of the master."

Hooked on this disc

Mike | Auburn, WA | 03/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have listened to this disc non-stop since I checked it out from the library two weeks ago! I have since ordered my own copy (a super bargain at $7 -- shop around).



Handel is one of my favorite composers, but I had never heard these works before. If you love Messiah or the Coronation Anthems, you need this disc!









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WONDERFUL CD

Matthew A. Pawlikowski | Seattle, WA USA | 06/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even though I prefer the "Te Deum" to be sung in Latin, this is an EXCELLENT RECORDING - great clarity & diction from the chorus. Another fine work of music by Handel which probably should be performed more often in concerts. Highly recommended."