London Handel Festival, St George’s, London, review: Rare stuff from the seemingly inexhaustible treasure-house of forgotten Baroque music

The soprano Louise Alder and mezzo Emilie Renard performed Handel duets, as well as a rarely heard duet by his contemporary Steffani

The mezzo Emilie Renard performed Handel duets with Louise Alder at At George's (Raphaella Photography)

Presenting Handel’s music in a London church in which the composer himself used to sit, with singers backed by a band of a sort he had specified, the London Handel Society’s last concert in St George’s Church, Hanover Square, proved a delight.

This time it was vocal duets by soprano Louise Alder and mezzo Emilie Renard with La Nuova Musica, under David Bates’s direction; also including a duet by Handel’s predecessor Agostino Steffani, this was for the most part rare stuff from the seemingly inexhaustible treasure-house of forgotten Baroque music.

Opening with the overture to Judas Maccabeus, Bates and his ensemble – two violins, viola, cello, bass, theorbo, and bassoon – established a warm and gracefully inflected sound. It seemed initially as though Alder’s bright and forceful soprano would obscure Renard’s delicately calibrated hues, but the balance of contrasts worked out very pleasingly.

In the early duet Tanti strali the bursts of coloratura were elegantly tossed to and fro and then sung in sweet harmony; the sweet languor of Steffani’s Placidissime catene – “gentle chains” – was eloquently reinforced by Jonathan Rees’s cello. The singers’ performance of Handel’s cantata ‘Il duello amoroso’ became a comic dramatisation of a stealthy but lethal emotional castration.