1 - The Morning 'The glittering sun begins to rise'  [8'01]
2 - Much Ado About Nothing - Song: Sigh no more, ladies  [2'24]
3 - The Desert Island - Song: What tho' his guilt  [2'22]
4 - Cymon and Iphigenia 'Near a thick grove, whose deep embow'ring shade'  [12'13]
5 - Frolic and free  [9'15]
6 - An Ode upon dedicating a building to Shakespeare - Song: Thou soft flowing Avon  [4'06]
7 - Jenny 'An Agreeable Musical Choice'  'Jenny, bright as the day and as buxom as May'  [4'44]
8 - The lover's recantation 'The kind appointment Celia made'  [9'20]

Emma Kirkby (soprano)
Richard Morton (tenor)
The Parley of Instruments
Roy Goodmanc (violin  & conductor)

January 1987
St Barnabas's Church, North Finchley, London, United Kingdom

I'm astonished to be the first person to review this recording in the many years that it has been available! It is such a gem. Dr Thomas Arne was a real tunesmith, and this charming collection shows him at his best.

Although Arne was heavily influenced by Handel (what Englishman of his generation could avoid this?) he was his own man, and no slavish plagiarist; something that needs to be said of an era, before binding copyrights, when even the great Handel could stoop to this level! It is known that Arne also admired the music of the Venetian Galuppi who visited London in the 1740s. The enchanting 'the Lover's Recantation', sung here beautifully by Emma Kirkby, will remind anyone familiar with Galuppi's comic operas of that composer's style.

That this music was performed at (if not always specially written for) London's South Bank Vauxhall pleasure gardens, a place frequented by all social classes, imparts to the modern listener the high degree of popular taste in 18th century London. Although these songs have the occasional folky touch, or earthy humour...often rather witty ('Cymon and Iphigenia' possesses both), they also show considerable sophistication. All these songs impress with careful craftsmanship, and varied moods within the same piece; the musical equivalent of finely-turned Chippendale furniture. The motive is primarily to please...and Arne succeeds. The English may have resisted Italian opera like no other European country...but they were far from being musical philistines. London audiences were exposed to a wider selection of musical styles than practically any other city (as the Mozarts well knew) and an astute, theatre-savvy businessman like Arne did his best to exploit the latest trends. Arne, being a Catholic, found the career niche of church music closed to him, and so sought more or less successfully over many years to exploit other avenues.

Both Richard Morton and Emma Kirkby are well chosen for this repetoire. I'm not always convinced by Miss Kirkby's style when she performs Italian opera of this period, but here the girlish voice seems to suit the English texts well. She is quite the coquette in 'The Lover's Recantation'!

Morton is perhaps not the securest of tenors on his high notes, but he seems idiomatic enough, and particularly good in the very amusing, and rather rakish, 'Frolic and free' as well as in 'Sigh no more, ladies', both of which could have been written for reformed members of the Hellfire Club! Excellent...buy it (if you can find it!)and you won't be disappointed. ---Duncan R. McKeown, amazon.com

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Disc: 1
  1. Artaxerxes: Overture: Poco piu che andante - Larghetto - Gavotta
  2. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Still Silence Reigns Around (Mandane)
  3. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Duettino: Fair Aurora, Pr'ythee Stay (Mandane, Arbaces)
  4. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Alas, Thou Know'st That For My Love Of Thee (Arbaces)
  5. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Adieu, Thou Lovely Youth (Mandane)
  6. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: O Cruel Parting! (Mandane)
  7. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Amid A Thousand Racking Woes (Arbaces)
  8. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Be Firm My Heart (Artabanes)
  9. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Behold, On Lethe's Dismal Strand (Artabanes)
  10. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Stay, Artaxerxes, Stay (Semira)
  11. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Fair Semira, Lovely Maid (Artaxerxes)
  12. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: I Fear Some Dread Disaster (Semira)
  13. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: When Real Joys We Miss (Rimenes)
  14. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Ye Gods, Protectors Of The Persian Empire (Semira)
  15. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: How Hard Is The Fate (Semira)
  16. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Where Do I Fly? (Mandane)
  17. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Thy Father! Away, I Renounce The Soft Claim (Artabanes)
  18. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Ye Cruel Gods, What Crime Have I Committed? (Arbaces)
  19. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Acquit Thee Of This Foul Offence (Semira)
  20. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit: Appearance, I Must Own, Is Strong Against Me (Arbaces)
  21. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: O Too Lovely, Too Unkind (Arbaces)
  22. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Recit (Accomp): Dear And Beloved Shade Of My Dead Father (Mandane)
  23. Artaxerxes: Act 1, Air: Fly, Soft Ideas, Fly (Mandane)
  24. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: Guards, Speed Ye To The Tower (Artaxerxes)
  25. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: In Infancy, Our Hopes An Fears (Artaxerxes)
  26. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: So Far My Great Resolve Succeeds (Artabanes)
  27. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: Disdainful You Fly Me (Arbaces)
  28. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: Why, My Dear Friend, So Pensive, So Inactive? (Rimenes)
  29. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: To Sigh And Complain (Rimenes)
  30. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: How Many Links To Dire Misfortune's Chain! (Semira)
  31. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: If O'er The Cruel Tyrant Love (Mandane)
  32. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: Which Fatal Evil Shall I First Oppose? (Semira)
  33. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: If The River's Swelling Waves (Semira)

Disc: 2
  1. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: Ye Solid Pillars Of The Persian Empire (Artaxerxes)
  2. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: By That Belov'd Embrace (Arbaces)
  3. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: Ah Me! At Poor Arbaces Parting (Mandane)
  4. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: Monster, Away! (Mandane)
  5. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Recit: See, Lov'd Semira! (Artaxerxes)
  6. Artaxerxes: Act 2, Air: Thou, Like The Glorious Sun (Artabanes)
  7. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Arietta: Why Is Death For Ever Late (Arbaces)
  8. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: Arbaces! (Artaxerxes)
  9. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: Water Parted From The Sea (Arbaces)
  10. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: That Front, Secure In Conscious Innocence (Artaxerxes)
  11. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: Tho' Oft A Cloud, With Envious Shade (Artaxerxes)
  12. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: My Son, Arbaces - Where Art Thou Retir'd? (Artabanes)
  13. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: O Let The Danger Of A Son (Rimenes)
  14. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit (Accomp): Ye Adverse Gods! (Artabanes)
  15. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: O, Much Lov'd Son, If Death (Artabanes)
  16. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: Perhaps The King Releas'd Arbaces (Mandane)
  17. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: Let Not Rage Thy Bosom Firing (Mandane)
  18. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: What Have I Done! Alas, I Vainly Thought (Semira)
  19. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: 'Tis Not True, That In Our Grief (Semira)
  20. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: Nor Here My Searching Eyes Can Find Mandane (Arbaces)
  21. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Duetto: For Thee I Live, My Dearest (Arbaces, Mandane)
  22. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: To You, My People, Much Belov'd, I Offer (Artaxerxes)
  23. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Air: The Soldier, Tir'd Of War's Alarms (Mandane)
  24. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Recit: Behold My King, Arbaces At Thy Feet (Arbaces)
  25. Artaxerxes: Act 3, Chorus: Live To Us, To Empire Live

Christopher Robson (Artaxerxes)
Ian Partridge (Artabanes)
Patricia Spence (Arbaces)
Richard Edgar-Wilson (Rimenes)
Catherine Bott (Mandane)
Philippa Hyde (Semira)

The Parley of Instruments
Roy Goodman (conductor)

Recording details: March 1995
The Warehouse, Waterloo, London, United Kingdom

Thomas Arne was one of the great survivors of eighteenth-century theatrical life: in his early twenties he put on an unauthorized production of Acis and Galatea that prodded Handel into taking English seriously as a language for theatrical works. It should therefore come as no surprise that in the three years from 1759 he has three smash hits of his own, each an original masterpiece that effectively created a new genre.

Artaxerxes, the second of these, was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria libretto in English.

The story of the rebellious captain of the guard's attempts to usurp the Persian throne in the fifth century BC had captured the attention of several composers, but Arne's opera particularly successful because it was an excellent vehicle for great singing. Mandane's spectacular aria 'The Soldier, tir'd of War's Alarms' remained a show-piece for sopranos through much of the nineteenth century and has never entirely dropped out of the repertory.

When Haydn saw Artaxerxes in 1791 he was delighted with it and reportedly said he 'had no idea we had such an opera in the English language'. --- hyperion-records.co.uk

Written in 1762, Arne’s English opera seria enjoyed a success which endured till the score was lost in the fire which destroyed the Theatre Royal in 1808. In a first recording, Roy Goodman directed a performance based on an edition by Peter Holman and welcomed in Gramophone by Stanley Sadie. Now a second attempt has been made, by Ian Page, conductor of the Classical Opera Company, with scholar and Gramophone critic Duncan Druce co-opted to work on the finale. In this version the opera was revived in 2009 at Covent Garden and equipped for a new lease of life as the work of the leading English composer of the time writing at the height of his powers.

The new recording improves on Roy Goodman’s fine original in several respects. The orchestral playing has rather more colour, especially in the prominent woodwind and brass sections; the dance melodies (the Overture’s Gavotte, for instance) are more shapely and overall there is more sense of fun. In the leading role of Mandane, Goodman has the wonderful Catherine Bott, but the more brilliant tone of Elizabeth Watts combines with her more vivid treatment of words (try her first aria, “Fly, soft ideas”) and the more forward recorded sound to make a stronger impression. Bott’s more scrupulous articulation of triplets in the famous “The soldier tir’d of war’s alarms” yields to Watts’s triumphant upper notes, while the ruthless virtuosity of her “Monster away!” carries all before it. The other leading role sung by a woman is the hero, Arbaces, strongly cast in both recordings. Patricia Spence is warm and vibrant in the earlier version but I find the Australian Caitlin Hulcup still more attractive (and does anyone else, I wonder, hear something in her tone reminiscent of Marian Anderson?). No bass in the opera, incidentally, but admirable work by all the other voices.

Of the alternative finales the new one is the more interesting piece of music, though Peter Holman’s solution of a chorus borrowed from Arne’s Comus works perfectly well. It is not textual differences and difficulties of this kind that the listener is likely to find troublesome, however, but rather the more elementary problem of ascertaining one’s whereabouts in the story. Not that this is a particularly complicated plot compared with most in Handel. But I seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy discovering which “A” is which (in a cast of six, there are three of them – Artaxerxes, Arbaces and Artabanes) and what exactly each of them is up to. --- John Steane, gramophone.co.uk

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