COMPOSERS: Handel
LABELS: Virgin Veritas
WORKS: Sonata a 5 in B flat; Armida abbandonata; Organ Concerto in F (The Cuckoo and the Nightingale)
PERFORMER: Emma Kirkby (soprano), Nicholas Parle (organ); London Baroque/Charles Medlam
CATALOGUE NO: VER 5 61290 2
The Pleasure Gardens of Vauxhall provided a variety of delights to almost all classes of English society during the 18th century; but the chief attraction was a musical one, for its bowers, pavilions and summerhouses offered a rich diversity of programmes in which music by all the leading London composers of the time – Handel, JC Bach, Arne, Boyce and others – could be heard. Handel is generously catered for in this enticing Vauxhall menu, with an organ concerto, a sonata and a chamber cantata, Armida abbandonata, beguilingly sung by soprano Emma Kirkby. Nicholas Anderson