Butt has created the best Samson ever...These choral forces make for a vibrancy unique among Samson recordings…Butt’s deep grasp of both Handel’s rhetoric and of large-scale structure turns the work’s patchwork quality into a virtue, bringing intimacy to each character’s reflections and urgency to crowd reactions.

As one would expect of conductor and academic John Butt, the recording breaks new ground. Butt gives us Handel’s first performed, and slightly longer, version of the work from 1743. He also has new ideas to present on the choruses...More importantly, the performance is unfailingly wide-ranging in its response to this epic oratorio.

This new Samson now becomes the top recommendation: for its uniformly excellent soloists, its excitingly ‘present’ choral singing and, above all, its more urgent sense of theatre…Sophie and Mary Bevan, both natural Handelian stylists, are well-nigh ideal… Jess Dandy, a true contralto, is the oratorio’s voice of balm, singing the sublime prayer ‘Return, O God of hosts’ with warm, even tone and broad phrasing.

Butt directs with vigour: Joshua Ellicott could hardly be a more different Samson from the stentorian Jon Vickers of yesteryear, light and eloquent; Sophie Bevan is a sensual Delilah, while Dunedin regulars excel.

Brisk speeds and agile accompaniments make this performance fly by. Joshua Ellicott’s Samson is an appealingly sympathetic character, delivering an eloquent “Total eclipse” in Act 1, Sophie Bevan's Dalila equally charismatic. There's fun alongside the drama too: sample the chorus of warring Israelites and Philistines which closes Act 2. Handsomely produced, with outstanding notes and glowing sound, this is a treat.

With the Consort’s best instrumentalists in place and Linn’s Philip Hobbs producing, this is an immaculate, and hugely important, recording. More prizes assuredly await.