Three other great recordings
William Christie (director)
Christie and Les Arts Florissants have the theatre coursing through their veins, and any interventions in this 1999 account such as the spectacularly long choral trill in the first chorus reprise or a few ear-tickling Gallicisms never feel like gratuitous attention-seeking. The result is an eminently urbane reading based on a tweaked version of the original score (substituting a light-onher-feet Patricia Petibon for the tenor Damon and succumbing to the later choral ending of Part I). It’s crowned by Sophie Daneman’s supple, coquettish Galatea. (Erato 2564 659887)
John Butt (director)
If bearding Acis and Galatea in its 1718 Cannons lair is a consideration, no one dots the ‘i’s and crosses the ‘t’s more thoroughly than the Dunedin Consort in 2008. But
John Butt’s scholarly insight always serves instinctive, vivid music-making. Tempos are often spacious and ‘The flock shall leave the mountains’ unfolds at a deliberate pace that allows Polyphemus’s flailing interjections maximum impact – Matthew Brook quite the most nuanced cyclops on disc. Susan Hamilton’s Galatea
is a nymph of liquid loveliness. An illuminating antidote to more viscerally charged readings. (Linn CKD319)
Eric Milnes (director) Les Boréades de Montréal’s
2004 set exudes a lithe freshness and attention to instrumental detail that more than compensates for any quibbles. The opening chorus is enlivened with rustic drone effects, and the pin-sharp chirruping of ‘Hush, ye pretty warbling choir’ almost leaves Suzie Leblanc’s appealing Galatea in the shade. Mark Bleeke’s Acis sometimes betrays signs of strain, but his first aria has French snap, crackle and pop aplenty. Milnes’s pacing, throughout, is spot on. (Atma ACD 22302)
And one to avoid…
Gerald Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (with piccolo replacing sopranino recorder) laid down this anachronistic 1991 account a good decade after John Eliot Gardiner’s period instrument recording. It starts well with a lively Sinfonia, but elsewhere tempos often invite lethargy, recitatives are drawn out and heavy string bass line can lumber. Dawn Kotoski sounds a rather wellupholstered Galatea, but David Gordon makes a decent fist of Acis.