This disc compiles material from several discs by the impressive French-Canadian soprano
Suzie LeBlanc, some of them originally featuring music by various composers. If you're looking for a singer who will carom daringly around the corners of a showpiece Handel aria like
Renée Fleming or
Vivica Genaux,
LeBlanc is not that performer; her voice is on the light side, and her best virtue is a deeply expressive engagement with the texts she sings. She makes you want to find out where she's singing in Montreal next weekend and head up there to see her perform. (
LeBlanc's recordings of Mozart's songs, by the way, are definitive readings of those underappreciated works.) The centerpiece in this collection is the six-movement Gloria in excelsis deo, a recently discovered work not definitely attributed to Handel but probably a product of his youth. The work certainly carries a principal trait of Handel's music -- his ability to harness local decoration of line, favoring the talents of vocalists, to the requirements of larger structures. Several singers, including
Emma Kirkby, have recorded it;
LeBlanc's version is on the quiet side, with a lovely, deliberate "Qui tollis peccata" (track 9). The Gloria is framed by a group of arias and instrumental works, the last group of which all come from Acis and Galatea. With the Gloria text familiar to most listeners and the Acis and Galatea excerpts in English, no texts are provided in the booklet; their omission will nevertheless be moderately annoying for Anglophones and extremely annoying for others.
LeBlanc chooses works that fit her voice well; she receives sympathetic support from the Académie Baroque de Montréal; and in general this disc makes a good sampler for those who have not yet encountered this most personal of Baroque-specialist singers.