Recording
Handel: La Resurrezione
The English Concert
Share this

FIRST PUBLISHED 23 NOV 2023
La Resurrezione, composed by Handel in his mid-twenties, and first performed on Easter Sunday in 1708, marked the climax of Handel’s time in Rome. The premiere featured none other than Handel directing from the harpsichord and Corelli leading the orchestra from the violin!
This oratorio details the events between and during Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In La Resurrezione, we can already see Handel’s mastery of musical technique in the arias and ensembles as he gives dramatic colour to the different characters in the story.
This recording by The English Concert features Lucy Crowe (Angel), Sophie Bevan (Mary Magdalene), Iestyn Davies (Mary Cleophas), Hugo Hymas (John the Evangelist), and Ashley Riches (Lucifer), conducted by Harry Bicket.
The Times:
…’the orchestra’s lively precision, rhythmic bounce and variegated colours: ideal tools for proper display of the endless imaginative subtleties woven into the instrumental score. As for the vocal forces […] I couldn’t detect a weak link’.
Find out more about La Resurrezione and buy a copy on The English Concert's website.
This project was supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation
Supported by Continuo Foundation
Share this
Keep reading

Attila the Stockbroker: Early Music’s punk radical
Attila the Stockbroker (John Baine) has spent nearly 50 years as a punk poet, and this August marks his fifth consecutive year bringing his ‘Early Music Show’ to St Cecilia’s Hall during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Playlist: Early Music Fusion
Explore the fusion of Early Music with jazz, pop and rock music. Listen to Sting’s Dowland, Jacques Loussier’s jazz-inspired Bach, L’Arpeggiata’s take on music by Purcell and Handel, and Attila the Stockbroker’s fusion of punk rock and Renaissance music.

Purcell: ‘I attempt from Love’s sickness to fly in vain’ from The Indian Queen
If you want a story of dysfunctional West End music theatre, a good place to start is the 1694/95 revival of 'The Indian Queen' by John Dryden and his brother-in-law Robert Howard, a Treasury official.
