SAUL

Christopher Purves (Saul), Sarah Connolly (David), Robert Murray (Jonathan), Elizabeth Atherton (Merab), Joélle Harvey (Michal), Mark Dobell (High Priest), Jeremy Budd (Witch of Endor) & Stuart Young (Ghost of Samuel)
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers

Renowned for their Handel interpretations, Harry Christophers and his award winning choir, The Sixteen, add to their glittering catalogue of Handel discs with this new recording of Saul.

In his biblical oratorio, Saul, Handel wrote an epic work of great and noble drama and of thrilling musical inventiveness. Saul represents Handel’s first proper foray into oratorio and it is a masterpiece full of great and magical moments. It is bursting with exceptional music, extraordinary orchestration (replete with trombones, deepsounding drum and perky carillon), extended choruses both profound and ebullient, symphonies, concerto movements for organ, recitatives which explore the varying moods of the characters, and the most stunning arias.

In Saul Handel gifted soloists with roles of vivid characterisation and the artists on this disc are some of the finest Handelian interpreters of today including Christopher Purves - a baritone whose talent for dramatic realisation is matched by superb musical craftsmanship - and Sarah Connolly - whose intensely radiant performance of David on this CD confirms her status as one of our most sought-after Handel performers.

Both Christopher and Sarah sang with The Sixteen at the start of their careers, and Sarah released her first solo album Heroes and Heroines on CORO, and so it is with great pride that we welcome them back for this recording. Robert Murray, Elizabeth Atherton and Joélle Harvey along with Sixteen regulars, Mark Dobell, Jeremy Budd and Stuart Young, complete the stellar line-up of soloists on this new recording.

Handel:
 Saul HWV 53

"[Christophers's] ever-sure handling of choruses, sensitivity to the needs of solo singers and affinity for the orchestral grandeur or Handel's most elaborate score mark him out as an honest, natural Handelian conductor...Purves charms, broods, fumes implacably, plots villainously and confronts his doom vividly in the manner of a Shakespearean tragedian...The Sixteen's first-class account of Saul is magnificent in every way that matters most."
Gramophone Magazine - October 2012

"Christophers is, on the whole, a lively and mainstream Handelian...The set is worth having for Connolly's singing of [David's] aria alone...Purves's volatile Saul strikes me, too, as a prime asset...none of his colleagues in the older sets suggests the gradual slide into paranoia and derangement as Purves does here. His text is immaculate, his coloratura clean and precise, never blustery."
International Record Review - October 2012

"The choruses are always beautifully contoured, as is the incisive playing of The Sixteen's house band. Christopher Purves and Sarah Connolly all but steal the show: Purves's splenetic Saul is a satisfyingly multi-layered creation...Connolly's 'O Lord, whose mercies' proves a spellbinding vindication of casting a sophisticated velvety mezzo."
BBC Music Magazine - Christmas 2012 ****