HANDEL: CANTATAS & ARIAS - HELEN WATTS, ROBERT TEAR, ACADEMY OF ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS, MARRINER

Handel: Cantatas; AriasHelen Watts (contralto), Robert Tear (tenor)Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner Of the works by Handel presented here, three are cantatas devoted to the Patron Saint of music, St. Cecilia, another is an Italian cantata that was probably presented for a private patron in Rome, while the remaining two works are drawn from Handel's unique set of Neun Deutsche Arien (Nos. 4 & 6 in the supposed original numbering), composed around 1724 to texts by Barthold Heinrich Brockes, the Hamburg poet and city official whose vernacular text of the Passion was set to music by several eighteenth-century composers including Handel. Brockes himself was pleased to note of the German Arias that 'the world-renowned virtuoso, Mr. Handel, set these to music in a very special manner.' They have attracted many fine singers on record, but few with so acute a feeling for Handel's word-painting as the tenor Robert Tear. The three Italian cantatas composed between 170