Handel/Mendelssohn

Here's a happy by-product of the Felix Mendelssohn industry, on a roll during this anniversary year. More than any other 19th-century composer, the Berlin-based wunderkind helped refocus attention on the then nearly dormant achievements of Bach and Handel. So prominent on the opera stage today, Handel's stage works suffered a long eclipse after his 1759 death; the only one to hold the stage was the simple but deeply moving, Ovid-inspired Acis and Galatea.

Handel himself produced many different versions of the piece over two decades (1718--39). And as musical styles changed, later arrangers (including Mozart in 1788) reworked the sublimely tuneful tale—a fateful love triangle involving a nymph, a shepherd and a mountain god—to suit their own tastes. Mendelssohn took his turn in 1828, at age 19; his equally talented sister Fanny, 24, provided German translations. Mendelssohn's version added high-Romantic flutes, timpani and very active trumpets to the mix; he also cut Galatea's "As when the dove" and foreshortened other numbers by slicing off repeats.

Carus's version, newly issued on hybrid SACD, derives from performances at the Gttingen Handel Festival in May 2008, under Nicholas McGegan's swift, sure baton. We're unlikely to encounter a better one, though Wolf Matthias Friedrich, the bass channeling Polyphemus, is a dud. Fresh-voiced soprano Julia Kleiter and artful tenor Christoph Prgardien sing the leads winningly; Michael Slattery is a clean, ethereal Damon.—David Shengold

Nicholas McGegan conducts the New York Philharmonic Mar 26--28.

Buy music from Handel, with Nicholas McGegan, on BN.com

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