In this recording of Bach’s Suite No. 1, John Eliot Gardiner follows Passepieds I and II with Bach’s own setting of the chorale Dir, dir, Jehova, will ich singen BWV 299. The joyous text celebrates praise and discipleship, prolonging the suite’s exuberant mood. No other recorded version features a vocal tailpiece, but if you don’t like it, simply program your player to skip track 8. It’s good to find both parts of the Overtures to these works repeated (Frans Brüggen omits second-section repeats), but at times Gardiner can seem too rugged and unyielding for what is, after all, ceremonial or occasional music.

Gardiner's set has a great deal to commend it. The recitative is sung with exemplary care over pacing so that it sounds as it should, like heightened and vivid conversation, often to electrifying effect. Ensembles, the Act 1 quartet particularly, are also treated conversationally, as if one were overhearing four people giving their opinions on a situation in the street. The orchestra, perfectly balanced with the singers in a very immediate acoustic, supports them, as it were 'sings' with them.

André Messager (1853-1929) studied with Fauré and Saint-Saëns and went on to become one of the most celebrated composers of operettas of his time. Fortunio, however, is a genuine opera. Messager of course utilized his skills as an operetta composer, and Fortunio is generally light and tuneful, but far more robust than most operettas. It is dramatically effective, beautifully scored, and contains magnificently written vocal lines and resourcefully developed dramatic climaxes. It is, in short, a very fine, often enchanting work that really deserves to be heard by fans of French opera, as well as a life in the opera house.

Cosi fan tutte"Of the numerous recordings of Cosi fan tutte in the catalogue, many of them excellent, I don't think there is any that has moved me as intensely at the work's ultimate climax, the Act 2 finale, as this new one of John Eliot Gardiner's. Nowadays we recognize, of course, that Cosi is not the frivolous frolic at the expense of womankind that it was long supposed to be, but something much more serious and (in my view at least) deeply sympathetic to women. Gardiner takes much of the finale at a rather steady pace, allowing plenty of time in the canon-toast for a gorgeous sensuous interplay of these lovely young voices, then carefully pacing the E major music that follows, pointing up the alarmed G minor music after the march is heard and sustaining the tension artfully at a high level during the denouement scene: so that, when their vow of undying love and loyalty, 'Idol mio, se questo e vero', is finally reached, it carries great pathos and emotional weight, and the sense too that all are chastened by the experience is evident in the ensemble that ensues.

Wieder einmal vergrub sich Gardiner in alle möglichen Quellen, um auch Haydns lebens- und sinnenfrohes Oratorium in neuen, trotz schlanker Besetzung nicht minder prallen Farben malen zu können. In den teilweise hymnischen Chorszenen treibt er seinen erstklassigen Monteverdi-Chor behende durch die Fugen und enorme Steigerungen hinauf. Sein Orchester stürzt sich geradezu auf die vielen Lautmalereien, und die Solisten können nahezu als Idealbesetzung gelten. Auch wegen der exzellenten Aufnahmequalität die zweite Platte des Monats.

Saul is the fourth of Handel’s English oratorios, written in 1738–39 as his career as a composer of Italian opera was drawing to a close. His librettist was Charles Jennens, who would eventually provide texts for L’allegro, Messiah , and Belshazzar. It is clear that, in the wake of a failed subscription to an Italian opera season, Handel intended Saul to take London by storm. The score calls for a huge orchestra, including trombones, carillon, a large organ, and double-bass kettledrums. This splendid recording, first issued in 1991, is of a live performance originally presented at the Göttingen Handel Festival in June 1989.

John Eliot Gardiner is one of the leading conductors in the active authentic performances movement in England, performing Baroque music but also extending his range into later repertoire. He first conducted at the age of 15, and after finishing school he studied at King's College, Cambridge. While still an undergraduate, he conducted the combined Oxford and Cambridge Singers on a 1964 tour of the Middle East and founded the Monteverdi Choir, which has consistently performed on his recordings since.

This imaginatively-curated, generously-filled Christmas package is sure to find favor during this and future holiday seasons. Why? Because it packs in every conceivable carol, tune, choral work or song in timeless performances from the greatest artists in the world: singers of immense communicative gifts including Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti to name but four. It truly offers something of every Christmas mind, spirit, and looks fantastic.

Acts I and III of this oratorio are sumptuous pageants: Solomon on the throne with his adoring Queen; Solomon receives the Queen of Sheba. In between, Act II's depiction of Solomon's judgment (over the baby) is one of the finest dramatic scenes Handel wrote in any context. The First Harlot's fear, desperation, and gratitude, the Second Harlot's grief-crazed jealousy, Solomon's serene wisdom–all are smashingly portrayed by Handel and by Rodgers, Jones and Watkinson. Argenta's Queen is a girlish delight; the regal Hendricks as Sheba sounds quite comfortable among these Baroque specialists; Rolfe Johnson and Varcoe have two splendid arias each. The choir and orchestra–whether in the amorous "Nightingale" chorus, the sequence of pictorial numbers in Act III, or the stunning double choruses throughout–are magnificent.

When the historic Theatre du Chatelet in Paris re-opened after a period of extensive refurbishment, the first two productions mounted in the theatre were Gluck’s Alceste and Orphée et Eurydice. Both operas were sung in their French versions and were mounted and designed by Robert Wilson and conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. This was the first time Wilson and Gardiner had collaborated and their individual credentials combined to produce an exceptional result.

Rebelling against the increasingly formulaic operas of the time, Christoph Willibald Gluck's "reformist" opera Alceste (1767) was a successful attempt to return to a purer form of musical drama. It is highly appropriate that this 1999 production of the revised 1776 Paris version should be conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, the same forces responsible for many fine Bach performances equally emphasizing character and text. In setting the tragic story of the profound love between Queen Alceste and her husband King Admète, Gluck provided a score of austere, rending beauty.

In the historic Weimar Herder Church Sir John Eliot Gardiner finds the perfect setting for his recording of the Bach Christmas Oratorio. Against the backdrop of the dramatic altar and Lucas Granach paintings, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists perform Gardiner's new interpretation of this classic piece. With this interpretation of the Christmas Oratorio, Gardiner shows himself once again to be an incontestible specialist of Bach's music.