Word: handel
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ROSSINI: MOSÈ (3 LPs; Philips). Made in 1956 but issued for the first time in the U.S., this is the opera's only recording. Mosè is closer in spirit to the oratorios of Handel and Haydn than to Rossini's own sparkling Barber of Seville, though a few light lovely Italian airs occasionally creep into the repertoire of the Egyptians. Basso Nicola Rossi Lemeni, as Moses, sounds too muffled and unfocused to convince anyone to follow him into the Red Sea, but the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro di San Carlo di Napoli play...
EARLY GERMAN OPERA FROM THE GOOSEMARKET (Angel). Opera in Germany in the early 1700s was dominated by the Italians, except in Hamburg, where a company on Goosemarket Street performed homegrown works such as Handel's Almira, Queen of Castile and The Proud, Fallen and Re-Elevated Croesus, by Reinhard Keiser, one of the most prolific opera composers of his day. A formal dance suite from Almira and several scenes from Croesus, along with excerpts from two other Goosemarket productions, are played by the Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg conducting...
...flute playing swept across Europe. Henry VIII owned 148 flutes and tootled several hours a day. Frederick the Great of Prussia caught flute fever as a boy, and hid his teacher in a closet to escape the wrath of his flute-hating father. Though Couperin, Telemann, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel wrote stacks of magnificent music for it, the flute in those days was easy to hate. ("You ask me what is worse than a flute?" Cherubini once snarled. "Two flutes!") Like most simple instruments it was difficult to play well, but so easy to play badly that almost everyone succeeded...
KENNETH MCKELLAR, a stylish Scottish tenor who is equally at home singing Handel arias, gives meticulous attention to Greensleeves and Other Songs of the British Isles (London). Abetted by a sensitive orchestral accompaniment, McKellar's expressiveness and polish bring freshness to such faded ballads as The Last Rose of Summer and Ye Banks and Braes...
...Soprano Montserrat Caballe and Bulgarian Basso Nicolai Ghiaurov. The Met also launched its new national touring company, whose performances ranged from a fine Cinderella to a terrible Carmen. Opera companies in other cities tirelessly found out-of-the-way things to do, for instance, the Kansas City production of Handel's 241-year-old Julius Caesar and the Boston premiere of Italian Composer Luigi Nono s starkly modern Intolleranza...