Lucy Crowe (soprano), English Concert/Harry Bicket Harmonia Mundi HMU 907559*****

The title of this disc is taken from John Mainwaring's 18th-century biography of Handel. The composer's opera Agrippina, reported Mainwaring, was greeted at its early Italian performances with shouts of "viva il caro Sassone!" Anyone hearing this disc is likely to want to cheer not just the Saxon Handel – who wrote the cantatas and arias recorded here in his early 20s – but also the English soprano Lucy Crowe. Crowe follows the young composer's flights with musical and emotional fidelity, in tones from tender to sharply penetrating. She uses her voice with quasi-instrumental freedom, but also with the kind of micro-inflection that the voice can make so much more potent and heart-piercing than any instrument. Harry Bicket and the players of the English Concert are hand-in-glove partners to the vocal wizardry. See url.ie/55ay