This massive
Handel box duly delivers the promised "classic performances," and certainly a good deal of the music therein falls under the heading of "essential masterpieces." Decca/Universal's growing catalog of budget-priced doubles and boxes offers a generally reliable way of covering a lot of bases for a little bit of money, and the performances here, going back to the early '70s in the case of the
Raymond Leppard set of Concerti grossi, Op. 3, all received solid evaluations in their own times and remained consistent sellers for years after they were released. The listener whose goal is to get five hours of precisely and attractively rendered
Handel to throw in the CD changer is not going to be disappointed by anything here. The vigorous group of organ concertos from the ubiquitous
Daniel Chorzempa with the authentic-instrument Concerto Amsterdam under Dutch early music pioneer
Jaap Schröder is a standout -- yet there's the rub. Do you really need to hear five organ concertos to sample
Handel's essential masterpieces? Or an entire disc of concerti grossi, a genre in which
Handel was surely excelled by both
Vivaldi and
Bach? It's not that these genres shouldn't be represented, but others are left out as a result. The big one is opera. It's true that
Handel's operas were less familiar when these recordings were made than they are now, but they were by no means unknown. And even if one makes allowances for the era, the implication from this set that
Handel's essential oratorio music begins and ends with Messiah is unacceptable. Likewise, the focus on the 5 Coronation Anthems for George II leads to the omission of the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day and other major choral pieces. Certainly it's desirable to include performances of complete pieces in an anthology of this kind, but the value of complete sets is harder to see. There is, in short, room for a more intelligently programmed competitor in the quest for Ultimate Handel.