Akademie für Alte Musik / Collegium Vocale Gent . Marcus Creed

Despite the fact that Georg Friedrich Handel was a full-blooded German, remarkably few of his compositions written in his mother tongue have been preserved. The only large-scale religious work written in German that is entirely his own work is the 'Brockes Passion'. Brockes' adaptation of the Passion story was incredibly popular in Protestant Germany in the early decades of the 18th century. Handel, Keiser, Telemann and Mattheson were keen to set the libretto to music. Handel's version is particularly striking because of its grand dramatic qualities; Handel didn't go in for the contemplation of Bach's religiosity. His passion is not as profound, Handel's strengths lie in his strong musical gifts, and it is on this that he should be judged, not his religious fervour. The Collegium Vocale, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the conductor Marcus Creed are all the ingredients needed to unveil this new Handel discovery.