Release date: April 2021
Label & Number: Signum SIGCD658
Total time: 60 mins
Armonico Consort
Christopher Monks Director
William Towers Countertenor
Armonico Consort return to Signum with a collection of Handel arias, performed by leading counter-tenor William Towers. A noted soloist in both opera and oratorio, the programme is taken from roles which Towers has sung across his career in various productions across the globe.
Towers writes: “It is the life-affirming, live-giving aspect of Handel that I’m aiming to celebrate. So frequently his operas reveal their most devastatingly beautiful and uplifting music when life is at its darkest. Here the arias shine brightest, here we find Radamisto’s ‘Ombra cara’ and the boundlessly optimistic ‘Dopo l’orrore’, looking out beyond the darkest clouds to the faint glimmer of a dawning hope. This is the uncrushable, indomitable spirit that lies in all of us … We just need to take the time to listen.”
TRACK LISTING
1 Ombra mai fu (Xerxes, HWV 40)
2 Se possono tanto due luci vezzose (Poro re dell’Indie, HWV 28)
3 Al lampo dell’armi (Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17)
4 Dall’ondoso periglio – Aure der per pietà (Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17)
5 Cara Sposa (Rinaldo, HWV 7)
6 Cielo! Se tu il consentí (Orlando, HWV 31)
7 Dove Sei (Rodelinda, regina de’ Longobardi, HWV 19)
8 Qual nave smarrita (Radamisto, HWV 12)
9 Ombra Cara (Radamisto, HWV 12)
10 Tacerò, purchè Fedele (Agrippina, HWV 6)
11 Dopo l’orrore (Ottone, re di Germania, HWV 15)
