La Resurrezione

After The Messiah, Paul Agnew tackles another of George Frideric Handel's major sacred oratorios: La Resurrezione.

While Christmas has become the most popular of all Catholic holidays, this was not so in the 18th century. The most essential moment in the liturgical calendar was associated with Easter, in celebration of the Passion... and above all, the Resurrection of Christ.

For Handel, such an important event called for the creation of a work in keeping with it. He composed La Resurrezione for Marchese Francesco Ruspoli during his stay in Rome. Given for the first time on Easter Sunday 1708, this oratorio is a dramatization in music of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ - but without staging, as was the law of the pontifical city at the time. It was an immediate success, earning the young Handel, then aged just 23, a large number of new commissions.

To bring out the full grandeur of this score, the orchestra and chorus of Les Arts Florissants join forces under the baton of Paul Agnew, alongside first-rate soloists well known to the public of Les Arts Florissants.