Roberta Invernizzi, Silvia Frigato, Thomas E. Bauer, La Risonanza, Fabio Bonizzoni - Handel: Duetti e Terzetti italiani (2015)

Handel composed his chamber duets and trios – nine of them presented here – at various times in his career: some during his crucial period in Italy, when he imbibed the latest Italian style at its source (1707-9); some during his period in Hanover (1710-12); and some during his London years (in 1720, then again in 1740-5). Their demands are often virtuosic: here sopranos Roberta Invernizzi and Silvia Frigato share the honours with tenor Krystian Adam and baritone Thomas Bauer, and they are all up to the pieces’ demands, even if occasionally, when the semiquavers come thick and fast, the result feels a little dogged.

Generally the singers enter into the mood of each piece with accomplishment, searching out the heightened expressive quality of Giù nei tartari regni, which takes us down into the emotional depths, as much as the extraordinary lovelorn chromaticism of Se tu non lasci amore and the relative jocularity of Quel fior che all’alba ride. The accompaniments, meanwhile, are stylishly handled by the three members of La Risonanza: cellist Caterina Dell’Agnello, theorbo player Evangelina Mascardi and harpsichordist Fabio Bonizzoni.