Curnyn's delicious recording of the surviving score is amplified with a sinfonia from Admeto and a passacaglia from Radamisto. These fizzily, sexily swung orchestral additions emphasise the parallels between Handel's incidental music and Purcell's music for King Arthur, The Fairy Queen and The Tempest...Alcestis's journey to the Underworld is enchanting, with Curnyn's fleet strings, intimately proportioned chorus, and polished soloists

Curnyn's lively and sensitive approach makes a strong case for this little-known score.

Curnyn and his trim period band give full value to the music's sensuous charm, phrasing alluringly in the slower numbers and keeping the rhythms lithe and springy...Andrew Foster-Williams is incisive without bluster in Charon's balefully cheerful 'Ye fleeting shades'. Benjamin Hulett is both mellifluous and athletic in his three arias, while Lucy Crowe displays her nimble coloratura technique in the frolicking 'Come fancy' and brings a limpid purity of line to 'Gentle Morpheus'

The score is of superlative quality and shows that Handel understood perfectly that for this quintessentially English theatrical impact the music had to make its impact immediately...Curnyn understands this too, and this performance has wonderful breadth...Crowe brings a gorgeous sensuality to ['Gentle Morpheus']...Hulett paces and phrases his short final aria 'Tune your harps' beautifully...Foster-Williams is impressively implacable in his single aria

[Hulett] impresses with his easy mellifluous voice, lovely sense of line and nice crisp ornamentation... if you haven't yet made the acquaintance of Handel's personable score, then this is the time to do so and this is the recording to go for.

Some of the finest music was written for the soprano...and Lucy Crowe is ravishing: it’s worth getting this disc just to hear her liquid middle register and hypnotic phrasing in the beautiful ‘Gentle Morpheus’. Andrew Foster-Williams is gleefully baleful as the infernal oarsman Charon, and Benjamin Hulett sings with distinctive tone and a fine sense of line in his three gorgeous arias.

agreeable sequence of music with one show stopper, Calliope’s Gentle Morpheus, which is the highlight here, as sung by Lucy Crowe, warmer and more sensual than the classic account by Emma Kirkby...[with] Curnyn’s choral and orchestral forces on sparkling form, the disc offers more than an hour of Handelian delight.

There's a real sense of ceremonial majesty in the choruses, and the solo singing is exceptionally fine. Benjamin Hulett tackles his exacting coloratura numbers with great elegance, while Andrew Foster-Williams has fun as Charon...Best of all, though, is Lucy Crowe, who gets to sing Gentle Morpheus, Son of Night, one of the most beautiful things in Handel's entire output