Your Tuneful Voice: Handel Oratorio Arias

Review by James Manheim British countertenor Iestyn Davies stands out from his contemporaries with his unusually smooth, liquid voice. That kind of countertenor voice usually flourishes in quieter arias but faces a tough slog in more athletic Handel arias, which for the most part were written not for a countertenor but for a castrato. Listeners might indeed wish for a more flamboyant presentation of arias like this from Davies, but really he has picked arias that fit his voice startlingly well. The showstoppers emerge as precise displays of chamber virtuosity, and in the slower, serious but sensuous pieces like Who calls my parting soul from death? (track 16), from Esther, Davies is really transcendent. In that piece and one other he's joined by soprano Carolyn Sampson, whose voice has a similar creamy quality, inducing a kind of sensory overload. The sheer vocal pleasure is broken up by the inclusion of a pair of overtures from the King's Consort under Robert King, who deserve notice for staying in balance with Davies in quite a variety of unfamiliar material, and another attraction of the album is the informative set of booklet notes by Donald Burrows, exploring the variety of scenes and voice types for which Handel's oratorios were written, and in so doing throwing light on why this rather unorthodox performance works so wonderfully well.