Who captured the spirit of this country’s pastoral tradition better than Vaughan Williams and his contemporaries? There is surely no greater, deeper evocation of our landscape than this 18th-century ode of Handel’s. To evocative texts by John Milton, the music spotlights the contrasts between the “busy hum of men” in the city, and the “hedge-row elms, on hillocks green” of the countryside, setting up the deeper contrast between cheerfulness and melancholy. Handel’s ravishing score, here realised to perfection by Paul McCreesh and his Gabrieli forces, evokes these scenes with colourful precision. The contrast between Gillian Webster’s piercingly pensive soprano and Jeremy Ovenden’s half-spoken, cheerful tenor effect a moving reconciliation in the sublime duet As Steals The Morn Upon the Night. A glorious recording: I cannot recommend it too highly.
