The Guardian
April, 2010
Anyone who emerged from the Royal Opera's recent production of Tamerlano with their faith in Handel dented would have found it restored by this wonderful concert, in which Rosemary Joshua and Sarah Connolly sang arias and duets from his operas and oratorios with The English Concert and Harry Bicket.
They are all fabulous Handel interpreters. Joshua's blazing tone contrasts with Connolly's altogether darker sound, yet their two voices blend together stunningly. Each has a remarkable if restrained way with words – more important in this music than you might think. Directed from the harpsichord with precision by Bicket, The English Concert have a marvellously acute understanding of Handelian sensuousness.
Operatic scenes came first. Connolly was implacable in one of Agrippina's murderous soliloquies and dazzling in Ariodante's Dopo Notte: Joshua was alluring as Agrippina's nemesis Poppea, and heartbreaking in Ginevra's lament at Ariodante's desertion. Then they tackled the lovers' big duet of reconciliation, spinning out their harmonised coloratura with heady perfection. Extracts from Solomon and Theodora followed the interval. Joshua's sensual Queen of Sheba preceded Theodora's When Sunk in Anguish and Despair, a powerful expression of faith, sung with huge dignity and assertion. Connolly gave us a rapt performance of Irene's As With Rosy Steps the Morn, also from Theodora, before changing roles to Didimus for the great duets in which the persecuted lovers face martyrdom.
It was bliss from start to finish. Any chance we could have the pair of them in a complete work – Theodora, preferably – with Bicket conducting?
The Times
April, 2010
You knew exactly when this concert was shaping up to be a blinder. It was when Sarah Connolly sprang out of her seat for her first entrance, dressed in a sleek tuxedo, and contemplated her public with a coolly imperious gaze. Well, she was the scheming Empress Agrippina in Handel’s barnstorming 1709 opera, and we were the pawns getting in her way.
This is what happens when you give every bar of Handel’s music its own raison d’être and breathe every wisp of nuance into his flavourful duets and those prolonged “da capo” arias. This concert, delivered by The English Concert under Harry Bicket, offered two artists of great refinement: Connolly and the elegant soprano Rosemary Joshua. Actually, there was a third great artist here, too: Bicket led his ensemble with both dramatic concision and pungent expression. The ballet music from Ariodante was lithe and punchy; the bracing Sinfonia from Solomon (the wedding favourite The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba) firmly erased all trace of stale confetti.
We progressed from Handel the punky Italian (Agrippina), to the florid heights of his London operas (Ariodante) and on to his chaste, more reflective oratorios. Joshua, whose warm, rather dusky tone is best appreciated at close quarters, brought a fervid anxiety to the lament Il mio crudel martoro, from Ariodante. Connolly’s show-piece aria of triumph from the same opera, Dopo notte, took on its virtuosic range without sacrificing nuance and, here, a rather gleeful intimacy…
The Evening Standard
December, 2009
The strings of the English Concert brought a splendidly acetic tang to Purcell’s pungent dissonances, while Robert Howarth’s discrete direction from the harpsichord ensured well-paced accompaniments for [Mark] Padmore’s ravishing accounts of Handel arias.
The Vancouver Sun
April, 2009
As the program unfolded, it was easy to see the complete rapport between singer [David Daniels], conductor, and ensemble. Bicket and his players provided remarkably sympathetic accompaniment, carefully scaled to the dynamic range of the soloist and responsive in the highest possible degree to his interpretations.
Chicago Tribune
April, 2009
[Harry Bicket's] performances with his period band English Concert here Sunday were beautiful... wonderfully in tune with the fire, fantasy and dancing lightness of the music...
The New York Times
April, 2009
Conducting from the harpsichord or portative organ, Mr Bicket elicited fine, colorful performances, and he achieved good variety in the Bach Suite (No.1 in C) by lightening the orchestration or dynamics in repeated sections.
The Times
November, 2008
This is music [Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day directed by Harry Bicket] that needs zip, and The English Concert musicians had it in plenty, allied with a razor-edge ensemble sense and faultless intonation. The strings alone were delight enough, rollicking through the twists and kicks of Handel’s leaps and syncopations…. a victory for vigorous, healthy music-making in the best English Concert tradition.
The Sunday Times
August, 2008
This superlatively sung recital of alto highlights from Bach’s Passions, Mass in B minor and cantatas (J S Bach Sacred Arias & Cantatas - Virgin Classics) [David] Daniels sets a yardstick for the singing of these arias - even if the programme is a bit heavy on dolefulness for a single sitting, I will recall these extracts when listening to complete recordings. The stylish playing of The English Concert only enhances the glory of Daniels’s unique voice.
BBC Music Magazine
August, 2008
The English Concert’s artistic director Harry Bicket draws some poised eloquent playing: dramatically charged in Es is vollbracht, rapt in Vergnügte ruh, exquisitely tender in Schaf können sicher weiden… (J S Bach Sacred Arias & Cantatas - Virgin Classics)
Muicalcriticism.com
June, 2008
[Harry Bicket, The English Concert and Jonathan Lemalu at Wigmore Hall] proved to be a strong demonstration of how it is possible for a classical concert in formal surroundings to still be a convivial, light-hearted, accessible and relaxed occasion. Some beautiful music, exactly performed…
The Times
February, 2008
As the English Concert wolfed down the semiquavers in Bach's fourth orchestral suite during Wednesday's Baroque mixed grill, it was hard to imagine the music ever sounding fresher or cleaner. Or faster: if Laurence Cummings, directing so spiritedly from the harpsichord, wasn't breaking the Bach land speed record, he was close. The woodwinds' dexterity here was jaw-dropping. Not a hair of a note was out of place.
Metro
August, 2007
(As Steals The Morn - Harmonia Mundi – winner of a 2008 BBC Music Magazine Award) is a collection of arias from Handel's oratorios and operas sung by Mark Padmore. The lyrical numbers are as dreamy as one would expect from a light and agile singer who knows how to float a phrase with effortless ease but he's equally good at high drama. He cries, whispers and rages in Bajazet's death scene from Tamerlano and the result is barnstorming. Andrew Manze's luscious, full-bodied conducting of The English Concert provides a wonderful cushion for Padmore's exquisite sound, and the title track, a pastoral duet (with soprano Lucy Crowe) from L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Ed Il Moderato, is a delight.
The Daily Telegraph
February, 2007
[Harry Bicket’s] theatrical experience bore fruit in these performances in the way he brought out the innate drama of Haydn’s symphonic vision… Needless to say, the crack players of The English Concert made the most of these opportunities…
Classicstoday.com
August 2006
These are splendid performances (Mozart Violin Concertos – Harmonia Mundi), musically astute and full of ear-catching detail. The playing of the English Concert under Andrew Manze is simply marvellous, with polished strings and delightful flutes, oboes, and horns.
Sunday Times
August 2005
These fabulous performances (Vivaldi Concertos for the Emperor – Harmonia Mundi), played with exhilarating virtuosity and panache in the Allegros and deeply felt expressivity in the slow movements, reveal Vivaldi as anything but the ‘dull fellow’ attacked by Stravinsky for composing the same form repeatedly.
