HANDEL: Italian Secular Cantatas

As a young man Handel spent four years in Italy, forging a uniquely exuberant operatic style. During that time he composed these three cantatas about classical love, a favourite theme of baroque composers. Ann Murray, a superb Handelian singer, here explores the different emotions engendered by the departure, absence, and finally the death of a lover, all with a telling range of colour and nuance much acclaimed in her Handel performances at English National Opera.