Curnyn has hit on a secret that eluded previous interpreters of this work: it was conceived specifically to showcase the beauty of the English language…Channelling Handel’s enthusiasm, Curnyn and his fellow artists forge a musical rhetoric powered by native sonorities…Lucy Crowe as Galatea excels especially in turning words, and word-pictures, into sound…This is, altogether, a benchmark that will be hard to beat.

The recording at St Jude-on-the-hill is lovely and spacious. Producer Rachel Smith and engineers Jonathan Cooper and Rosanna Fish are to be congratulated.

Secure of ripe, rounded tone and exemplary as to diction, Davies avoids the comic bluster that so often mars the role [of Polyphemus]…Crowe’s Galatea is also appealing, her singing bright and characterful, attaining tragic dignity after the death of Acis…Clayton is an admirably ardent and virile Acis…The orchestral playing is excellent, with particular plaudits going to the oboists.

Crowe is predictably delicious as Galatea...She is well partnered by Allan Clayton’s heroic Acis...Benjamin Hulett’s Damon supplies the set’s most exquisite singing in Consider, Fond Shepherd...A must-have for Handelians.