Handel’s chamber music remains among the least exposed of his prodigious output, so it is canny of Ensemble Zefiro to lace four of his masterly trio sonatas with vocal contributions from Bertagnolli, one of the leading lights of the Italian baroque rinascimento.
Handel wrote his trios for private use and published two sets of them, Op 2 & 5, indicating pairs of violins, flutes and oboes as alternative “soloists” for the former, violins/flutes for the latter. Ensemble Zefiro highlights the oboe. Their playing is delightfully alert in allegros, raptly expressive in the slow movements. The largo of the G minor trio is a highlight. Bertagnolli enchants in Mi palpita il cor (My heart trembles), but is all but incomprehensible in one of the Nine German Arias and in the world premiere recording of possibly Handel’s first English setting, Venus and Adonis.