JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809) THE CREATION Sandrine Piau (Soprano), Mark Padmore (Tenor), Neal Davies (Bass), Peter Harvey (Baritone), Miah Persson (Soprano)/Chetham's Chamber Choir/Gabrieli Consort & Players/Paul McCreesh Archiv Produktion 00289 477 7361, 2008; two discs, 109 minutes

Abstract

warbling choir' (the recorder's repetitive birdsong is highly irritating for Galatea, whether particularly rapid or not), it works less well in the other movement with a recorder solo, 'O ruddier than the cherry', sung by Polyphemus. This last aria makes Polyphemus so lumbering that he does border on buffoonery (although the strings' attack hints at his underlying menace), and it also encourages bass-baritone Matthew Brook to overemphasize the 'i' in 'ruddier'. Brook's rendition of 'Cease to beauty to be suing' is also too heavy. In his notes, Butt draws a connection between the time signatures of Galatea's and Acis's music, but fails to see a link between Polyphemus's 'Cease to beauty to be suing' and Acis's 'Love sounds th'alarm' (which is also too slow). The former is in 3/4 while the latter is in 3/8, and although these time signatures present basically the same triple metre, they highlight the difference between the lissomness of the youth and the clunkingfistedness of the giant (which is rather laboured if taken too measuredly). 'The flocks shall leave the mountains' is taken at a very deliberate andante, which lends it gravitas, and which perhaps makes the impending disaster more horrible, but in my opinion it is a little too slow-the voices struggle to cope (especially Polyphemus, having to elongate 'cannot'), and Butt makes the orchestral postlude representing Polyphemus's murder of Acis into a rather obvious accelerando. Had he taken the whole trio a little faster, he could have avoided this predicament, as again the semiquavers should not rush, for they represent the unstoppable rock bearing down on the hapless shepherd. The other problem with the slowness of some of Butt's tempos is that his singers are not quite up to the task. All are pleasing on the ear, but Galatea is a little on the thin side (for example in 'As when the dove'), Acis sounds as though he is still a choral scholarprofessional but lacking in dramatic effect-and Damon could do with more lyricism. However, it must be acknowledged that this is nit-picking, as all of them offer some delightful moments. Death brings out the best in Nicholas Mulroy (Acis), whose final rendition of the phrase 'sheds delicious Death' in Part I is lovely (although I am not sure that he quite conveys its double meaning); his portrayal of the dying Acis is properly pathetic, in the true eighteenth-century meaning of the term. In all, this is a thoughtful and highly successful interpretation of Acis and Galatea, and one that reminds the listener of the profundity of Handel's short and sweet work. katie hawks Eighteenth-Century Music