ProStudioMasters.com

"Four Stars ... the performance makes a strong case for the piece ... the choir is lively, making every word clear ... all the soloists make their mark." - BBC Music Magazine "Editor's Choice ... with his vast Handelian experience, King ensures that Handel's mighty series of choral frescoes emerge in all their brilliance and incisiveness, aided by a carefully judged choral-orchestral balance ... a vividly realized snapshot of a fascinating historical moment." - Gramophone "Four Stars ... the results are fascinating: burbling clarinets supply continuo, added solo recitatives fill out the sequence of choral movements and a totally Mendelssohnian overture now kicks off the story. Handel’s masterly depictions of frogs, plagues and other natural disasters in his choruses are enhanced ... (a) feisty performance." - The Guardian Robert King leads the King's Consort on Mendelssohn’s version of Handel’s great oratorio Israel in Egypt, recorded in October 2015. The cast stars sopranos Lydia Teuscher and Julia Doyle, alto Hilary Summers, tenor Benjamin Hulett and bass Roderick Williams, with striking chorus work from the large double choir. King has painstakingly reconstructed Handel's historic 1833 Düsseldorf performance from fragments and sources across Europe and radically different it is to Handel’s 1739 original. The large and colourful orchestra plays 19th century instruments, producing vivid sonorities and presenting very different arrangements. For example, with no organ, Mendelssohn scored the continuo part into the orchestra. There are also significant changes to the order of movements, additional numbers are included and the text is sung in German.