Sandrine Piau (soprano), Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas,

Handel: Scherza in mar (from Lotario)
Handel: Il vostro maggio (from Rinaldo)
Handel: Da tempeste il legno infranto (from Giulio Cesare)
Handel: Concerto Grosso No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 6: I. Larghetto affetuoso
Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Recitativo "E pur così" & Aria "Piangerò la sorte mia"
Handel: Concerto Grosso No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 6: II. Allegro
Handel: Alla salma infedel (from Lucrezia)
Handel: Ah! mio cor! (from Alcina)
Handel: Amadigi Di Gaulo, HWV 11. Overture & Aria "Desterò dall'empia Dite"
Handel: Concerto Grosso No. 6 in G Minor, Op. 6: I. Larghetto e affettuoso
Handel: Alcina. Aria "Tornami a vagheggiar" & Aria "Lascia ch'io pianga"

Handel is one of Sandrine Piau’s cult composers, and everyone has vivid memories of her magnificent Alcina on DVD (ALPHA715): ‘Where once I portrayed light-hearted, pirouetting heroines, this new album offers a portrait of powerful, often wounded women.’. . . ‘Queens, sorceresses, sirens . . . we were attracted by the musical and emotional intensity of the hopes, disappointments and sufferings of these women, not forgetting the malice or cruelty that they also know how to deploy’, continues Jérôme Correas, the soprano’s longstanding musical partner and conductor of Les Paladins. With Almirena, Cleopatra and Alcina, Handel explores all the facets of these defeated heroines, whose boldly delineated characters live once more in Sandrine Piau’s passionate interpretation.

"In this dazzling album, Sandrine Piau crowns her legacy as a Baroque prima donna...her informed additions subvert the original melodies and unleash a ferocious vocalism...Correas and the band add their own magic: whirlwind tempos, extravagant continuo realisations and slightly off-beat entries keep us guessing what the instrumentalists will do next." - BBC Music Magazine, March 2022.