Naïve: Handel — A Song for Saint Cecilia's Day (Minkowski, Crowe, Croft) (Audio CD)

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Naïve
• Composer: George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
• Title: A Song for St Cecilia's Day (Ode à Sainte Cécile)
• Soloists: Lucy Crowe (soprano), Richard Croft (tenor)
• Choir & Ensemble: Chœur & Les Musiciens du Louvre–Grenoble
• Conductor: Marc Minkowski
• Release Year: 2011 (℗ 2009)
• UPC: 822186052792
• Catalog Number: V5279
• Genre: Classical, Baroque
• Condition: New / Factory Sealed

Product Features

• Format: CD
• Discs: 1
• Tracks: 13
• Total timing: 61:00
• Performance: period instruments
• Chorus master & assistant conductor: Nicholas Jenkins
• Text: ode by John Dryden
• Made in France

Overview

Handel's A Song for St Cecilia's Day is a glowing tribute to the patron saint of music, setting John Dryden's great ode about how music moves the soul. Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre–Grenoble bring their trademark vitality and color to it on period instruments.

Dryden's poem gives Handel a gift: each verse celebrates a different instrument, and Handel paints them all — the trumpet's "loud clangor," the "soft complaining flute," the "sharp violins." Soprano Lucy Crowe and tenor Richard Croft are the eloquent soloists, ranging from intimate airs to grand choral affirmation.

The performance has both scholarly polish and real theatrical flair. Minkowski shapes the work as a series of vivid scenes, and the chorus delivers the closing "As from the pow'r of sacred lays" with thrilling weight.

At just over an hour, this is a beautifully produced single-disc account of one of Handel's most appealing shorter choral works. For lovers of baroque music, Handel and the rich Naïve catalogue, it's a real pleasure.

Interesting Facts

• Handel composed the ode in 1739, setting words written by the poet John Dryden in 1687.
• St Cecilia is the patron saint of music, and her feast day (22 November) was long celebrated with specially composed odes.
• Dryden's text moves instrument by instrument, which Handel illustrates with vivid orchestral word-painting.
• Marc Minkowski founded Les Musiciens du Louvre in 1982 and made it one of the world's leading period-instrument ensembles.
• Soprano Lucy Crowe has become one of the most sought-after baroque and bel canto singers of her generation.
• The cover reproduces a detail of a St Cecilia painting by Domenico Zampieri (Domenichino), from The Bridgeman Art Library.

Track Listing

1. Overture
2. From harmony
3. When Nature
4. From harmony
5. What passion cannot Music raise
6. The trumpet's loud clangor
7. March
8. The soft complaining flute
9. Sharp violins proclaim
10. But oh! What art can teach
11. Orpheus could lead
12. But bright Cecilia
13. As from the pow'r of sacred lays

Publishers

Released 2011 (℗ 2009) by Naïve (catalog V5279). Les Musiciens du Louvre–Grenoble, conducted by Marc Minkowski; chorus master Nicholas Jenkins. Made in France.

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