Handel Arias: Russell Oberlin (rec 1959)

This one won't be everyone's cup of tea, but those of you who enjoy Baroque vocal music, pull a chair up to the fireplace and I'll tell you a story.

Long ago, before there were flowering plants, and dinosaurs roamed the earth (around the middle of the last century), things were different from the way they are now. Male singers with high voices weren't abundant; there were the Dellers --Alfred, and later his son Mark-- there was Grayston Burgess, there was Hugues Cuénod, there was Russell Oberlin... and that was about it. Unbelievable, but true. Bowman, Esswood, Brett, Jacobs, Ledroit... all those guys were later.

Another thing: you didn't find many Baroque recital-type recordings (for male or female voice). We're spoiled now. Look at the wealth of vocal music we can hear --Albinoni, Bertali, Bononcini, Caldara, Campra, Carissimi, Cavalli, Charpentier, Dumont, Ferrari, Galuppi, Gasparini, Grandi, Jomelli, Lotti, Lully, Mazzocchi, Porpora, Rameau, Sances, the Scarlattis, Strozzi, Vivaldi (I'm forgetting a lot of them, and all the Brits, Germans and Czechs, but you get the idea). Back then, even recordings of Handel arias were few and far between. Can you imagine?

This was one of those early ones. Recorded in 1959, reissued in 2007 (and already out of print). Styles and approaches have changed in 50 years, but he's certainly worth hearing.
Oberlin retired from performance fairly young (in his mid-30s) and taught music at Hunter College in New York until about 15 years ago; he'll be 84 in the autumn.

.flac+cue+tracklist+"full scans" (note: for this reissue, DG was not especially generous)