Handel Solomon

“The first complete recording of a masterly oratorio with an inspired cast – vocally and dramatically compelling. The orchestral playing is as fine as Gardiner’s, the choral singing even better.”Classic CD

“…Susan Gritton, the Queen of Sheba on Paul McCreesh’s 1998 recording, has an apt hint of dusk in her tone; and her hypnotic singing of her farewell aria is one of the highpoints of the whole performance. In this, the first complete Salomon on disc, McCreesh vindicates the inclusion of such numbers as Zadok’s picturesque ‘See the tall palm’ (nimbly sung by Paul Agnew), the Queen of Sheba’s gavotte-like opening aria, and ‘The name of the wicked’; which rather than being “the work of a tired brain” (Winton Dean) emerges, delightfully, as an insouciant, even mischievous, ‘jeu d’esprit’.”Gramophone