OPERATIC FIREWORKS ON HANDEL ANNIVERSARY

The likelihood of the commencement of an honest, dedicated effort to record Handel’s major stage works in stylistically apt editions--or in any form, for that matter--during this 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth becomes a more remote fantasy with every passing month.

We have to be grateful, then, for the single neglected theater piece, “Tamerlano,” to have appeared thus far (CBS I3M 37893).

Handel’s 18th opera, “Tamerlano” dates from the year 1724, following hard on the triumphant heels of his “Giulio Cesare.” It utilizes an archetypal Italian libretto of the time, wherein a historical character--here, Tamerlane the Great--is made the center of a fictional farrago of romance, honor and betrayal. One listens to Handel’s operas for magnificent music and the vivid characterization expressed in his arias and recitatives rather than overall plot credibility.

And once reconciled to the curious, high-Baroque notion that the male alto voice is uniquely suitable to the expression of the most powerful masculine sentiments, one can let Handel’s astonishing succession of grand tunes take over.

The most imposing music, however, is given to the tenor--a voice seldom favored by Handel in his operas--the Turkish emir Bajazet, Tamerlane’s prisoner and father of Asteria, with whom Tamerlane is unwisely in love. John Elwes portrays Bajazet with dramatic point in a clear, penetrating voice of admirable flexibility.

The part of the burly, headstrong Tamerlane is taken by a particularly sweet-voiced countertenor, Henri Ledroit, who portrays the benign ruler effectively enough but hardly convinces as the tyrant.

Asteria and Irene, Tamerlane’s neglected betrothed, are very well sung and characterized by Mieke van der Sluis and Isabelle Poulenard, respectively; Gregory Reinhart skillfully attends to the basso platitudes of Leone, friend and confidant to Andronico, Tamerlano’s lieutenant and the beloved of Asteria (still with us?), who is crooned with insufferable countertenor coyness by Rene Jacobs.

In all, this is one of the better sung versions of a Handel dramatic work on recordings. And the score of “Tamerlano” is a welcome addition to the catalogue.

Serious reservations must nonetheless be expressed regarding the conductor, Jean-Claude Malgoire, who leads the modestly endowed French period-instruments ensemble, La Grande Ecurie et La Chambre du Roy. Malgoire’s beat is all too often flabby when incisiveness is demanded, and he tends to accompany rather than partner or lead the singers.

To experience precisely what is wanting in the Frenchman’s conducting one need listen to only a few measures of a program of ballet music from Handel operas--”Alcina,” “Il Pastor fido,” “Terpsichore”--led by John Eliot Gardiner and played by his superb antiquarian ensemble, the English Baroque Soloists (Erato 75169).

Gardiner’s leadership is crisp and lively, with rhythms keenly articulated via the short, hard bow-strokes notably absent from the “Tamerlano” performance.

The Swiss recorder virtuoso Hans-Martin Linde leads the Capella Coloniensis, Germany’s pioneering period-instrument orchestra, in the “Royal Fireworks Music”--the version for strings and winds--and a delightful “Concerto a due Cori” in F for two wind bands and strings (Angel DS-38155). The same conductor, this time with the Linde Consort, also presents the complete “Water Music” (Angel DS-38154).

Linde and his players project neither the liveliness nor the polish of the best British-originated versions--Pinnock/English Concert, Hogwood/Academy of Ancient Music, Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists. But there is a rugged strength, a sort of stamping here that is not at all unappealing and is representative of that rougher side of Handel’s personality ignored by the Britishers.

Inhabiting another world altogether is the “Water Music” (in Neville Boyling’s edition) as vehicle for virtuoso modern conductor, Riccardo Muti, and virtuoso modern orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic (Angel DS-37857). As a reading unconcerned with latter-day conceptions of period style, it is hardly the worst. Yet its combination of slickness, lushness and aggressiveness is difficult to tolerate after the tripping vivacity of the best scholarly readings.

Still, modern Muti and Co. are preferble to an “authentic” performance like the one in which Malgoire and La Grande Ecurie, etc. enfeeble the “Water Music” with limp conducting and labored execution (CBS M39066). If Handel’s own musicians had played so crudely and dispassionately, the chances of the score being granted royal favor--to say nothing of 2 1/2 centuries of undiminished popularity--would have been nil.