Hommage: Tributes to Handel & Purcell
£12.50
HTGCD 118 – 5060332663217
Lesley-Jane Rogers soprano; John Turner recorder; Jonathan Price cello; Jonathan Bielby harpsichord
An enterprising release, Heritage presents a concert performance made at the Handel Festival in Halle, Germany, in 2006 of new works which pay tribute to and are inspired by the music of Handel and Purcell. At the forefront are compositions by East German composer, Ruth Zechlin, and contemporary British composer Robin Walker. A rare cantata by Pepusch and more familiar works by Telemann, Handel and Purcell complete the programme.
Ruth Zechlin: Hommage a Handel ; Hommage a Purcell
Robin Walker: Handel to His Soul
Johann Pepusch: Cantata ‘When Love's Soft Passion’
Henry Purcell: Music for a while; I attempt from love's sickness to fly; The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation
Georg Philipp Telemann: Sonata in D Major for cello and continuo
George Friederich Handel: Cantata: Nel Dolce del'Oblio
Reviews
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“Consider the rarity value of an album that offers an unreleased 2006 memorial concert in Halle, Germany, sponsored by our Professional Footballers’ Association in celebration of the distinguished musical scholar Percy Young, who also wrote twelve books about football. I’ll pause for you to digest that sentence. Happily, the quality of the results far exceeds the curio quotient. Above all there’s the thrilling, powerhouse singing of soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers, who navigates with supreme and equal confidence the gracious inventions of Handel, Purcell and Pepusch and the scary lunges required for a 2004 Handel homage by Ruth Zechlin, a work otherwise quite hard to love. No such problems exist with the tenderly haunting Handel to his Soul, another contemporary homage by the always rewarding and unfairly neglected Robin Walker, or Pepusch’s delight, or the instrumental contributions from John Turner’s recorder, Jonathan Price’s cello and Jonathan Bielby’s harpsichord. Intimate music-making, this, of a high order.” Geoff Brown, The Times, June 2026
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‘a programme which elides nimbly if meaningfully between the musical past and present. All credit to the musicians that these performances are so idiomatic across the board, thereby bringing works separated by over three centuries into enlightening accord.’ Richard Whitehouse, Arcana FM
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‘As with so many Walker pieces, its emotional resonance is way bigger than the work’s modest dimensions suggest, a resonance amplified by the marvellously committed and full-voiced signing of Lesley-Jane Rogers, who’s on blazing good form throughout the whole album………..It is a hauntingly moving work, and we’re so lucky to have this performance rescued from the archive and put out into the wider world……..Do seek out this quirky and distinguished album.’ Geoff Brown, British Music Society