Search - Furio Zanasi, George Frederick Handel, Diego Fasolis :: Handel: Dixit Dominus; Dettingen Te Deum

The Dettigent to Have--and a Fine Dixit to Boot

07/10/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I reviewed the Naxos recording of the Handel Dettingen Te Deum on this Website, I was rather cool about it, saying that the celebratory music lacked excitement and bite. The Arts Music performance led by Diego Fasolis confirms my reaction in spades. The opening "We praise Thee, O God" with its martial flourishes doesn't even sound like the same piece of music on the two recordings, so exciting are both orchestra and chorus under Fasolis. To be fair, Fasolis has the advantage of a crystal-clear and very impactful recording. Though done live and in a church setting (in Milan), the recording is thrilling; chorus and orchestra both emerge in etched detail, and the three trumpets and drums that fuel the ceremony of the piece are resplendently recorded.The soloists are all fine and blend particularly well, though I notice some few troubles with English diction both among the soloists and in the chorus. (No such problem in the Dixit with its Latin text, of course.) And what a surprise! I now understand why the alto soloist in this work always seems to sound like a bassoon in its ungainly upper register. The music must have been concieved by Handel for a male voice; here, Fasolis consigns the music to a male alto, and the results are much more lipid solos and a better blend by far with the ensemble. Bravo, Signor Fasolis!The drive and elan that Fasolis gets from his forces appear almost universal, though "Day by day we magnify Thee" seems sluggish to me, one of the only labored bits in the whole performance. But the clarity of the beautiful and beautifully played trumpet solo compensates. This is a wonderful piece, reminiscent of "The trumpet shall sound" from the Messiah.Dixit Dominus, a work of Handel's salad days in Italy, shows some of its apprentice bearing vis a vis the master's later choral music, but you won't notice in this charged-up performance. Chorus and soloists sign with both fervor and feeling, and the string body is always incisive. The results: a model Dixit; I can't remember hearing it better done. Listen, for example, to the whip-crack attacks by the chorus on "et non poenitebit."So Handelians, rejoice. Here is your money's worth indeed."