Favorites of 2025: Recordings

As with the other posts in this series, the recordings listed below are my favorites of those first experienced in 2025. I've listed them below by musical category in chronological order by period.

Renaissance polyphony

Two all-male choirs made my list for 2025. Although in this music we also very much enjoy mixed ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Stile Antico, and Tallis Scholars, during the Renaissance sacred polyphony was probably most often sung by single-sex choirs. (Although the repeated edicts barring women from church choirs does make one wonder why the ban had to be so often reissued.) I confess as well that I simply like the sound of all-male (and all-female) choirs. Both of these groups are exceptional, and their programs were of music mainly unfamiliar to me.

Queen of Hearts. The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, director. Hyperion CDA68453; recorded 2023.

This album features songs of praise for the Virgin Mary and "regretz chansons" (songs of lamenting and despair) from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Much of the music is associated with four queens: Anne of Brittany, Margaret of Austria, Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. Three of the queens died relatively young from ill health, sudden or chronic; one, Anne Boleyn, was executed by her husband, King Henry VIII, after unsubstantiated accusations of adultery, incest and treason. The music is exquisite, and includes two contemporary works (one by the group's leader Owain Park) that fit into the program almost seamlessly.

"Sub tuum praesidium" by Antoine Brumel, c. 1500:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAvNucEv1Qk

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei genetrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

To thy protection we fly, O Holy Mother of God; Do not spurn our prayers in our time of need, but from all dangers deliver us always, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.

Jacobus Vaet: Missa Ego flos campi. Cinquecento. Hyperion CDA67733; recorded 2008.

Vaet, a composer new to me, died in 1567 at age 37. His music does not sound as dark or melancholy to my ears as that of the Franco-Flemish composers of the "regretz chansons" from a generation or two before him, although perhaps that is because most of the music on this disc is devotional and laudatory. It is beautifully performed by the voices of Cinquecento, with the floating countertenor of Terry Wey of particular note.

Vaet's "Miserere mei, Deus," c. 1562:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAEWIH4PgEI

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam. Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea. Miserere mei, Deus.

Have mercy upon me, O God: according to thy lovingkindness. and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me. Have mercy upon me, O God.

Baroque opera and oratorio

Johann Adolf Hasse: Piramo e Tisbe. Barbara Schlick (Piramo), Ann Monoyios (Tisbe), Wilfred Jochens (Padre). La Stagione, Michael Schneider, conductor. Capriccio 60 043-2; recorded 1993.

In October 1763 the 64-year-old Johann Adolf Hasse, Kapellmeister of the Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony August II, lost his position when his patron died. It was the latest in a series of catastrophes: earlier that year on returning to Dresden after several years, Hasse had discovered that his house and all of his musical manuscripts had been destroyed during the Prussian bombardment of the city in 1760. After August's death, the new Elector instituted economies and ended large-scale musical activity at the court. Hasse and his wife Faustina Bordoni were given two years' salary, but no pension for their 30 years of service. They departed for Vienna early in 1764.

In Vienna Hasse found himself enmeshed in controversy. He was upheld as an exemplar of Metastasian opera seria against the reformers Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi. Gluck and Calzabigi meant to do away with what they considered the old-fashioned and static conventions of opera seria, such as the da capo exit aria intended to showcase virtuoso vocalism. Instead, they wanted to push the dramatic action forward more swiftly. Two years before they had produced an opera following these principles, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

Johann Adolf Hasse, engraved by Friedrich Johann Kauke after a painting by Pietro Rotari, ca. 1763. Image source: Museum-Digital Sachsen-Anhalt

Hasse must have seen the false position in which he'd been placed as something of a challenge. When an opera was privately commissioned from him in 1768, he responded by producing a Gluck-like work with just three characters, featuring short arias with few repeats that emerged out of accompanied recitative and flowed back into recitative without a break, and that reaches its conclusion in a swift two hours—very much like Orfeo ed Euridice.

Piramo e Tisbe is based on Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Prefiguring Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe have fallen in love, but their families are at odds. In the face of a parental ban on their union, they plan to elope. But their plan goes awry, and disaster ensues. Hasse and his librettist Marco Coltellini went further even than the reformers: their intermezzo tragico is a true tragedy. Unlike in Orfeo ed Euridice, no gods intervene to ensure a happy ending and reunite the couple. Instead, this is the very rarest and darkest of 18th-century operas: at the end, all the characters in the opera—the two lovers along with Tisbe's father, who had forbidden their union—are dead, and all have died by suicide.

Pyrame et Thisbé. Line engraving by Vicenzo Vangelisti after Guido Reni, 18th century. Wellcome Collection 42992i

This recording was one of the first ever made of this work, and has stood the test of time. As Tisbe, Ann Monoyios displays a pretty soprano with an appropriate touch of plaintiveness. The opera was commissioned by the singer who played the original Tisbe, and Hasse lavished his gift for beautiful melodies on the character. Barbara Schlick's Piramo offers a slightly harder-edged voice, not as appealing but well-suited to her male role. Tisbe's father was written for the librettist Coltellini himself, a tenor. Wilfred Jochens' voice is sufficiently ringing to provide a sense of authority, even if to my ears his music doesn't sound particularly threatening. 

Piramo e Tisbe has received a new recording this year on Harmonia Mundi featuring Roberta Mameli as Tisbe, Anett Frisch as Piramo, and Jeremy Ovenden as the father, accompanied by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Bernhard Forck. The two leads on the Harmonia Mundi recording are perhaps stronger than those on the Capriccio recording, although I prefer Jochens to Ovenden as the father. On Harmonia Mundi, Forck employs somewhat swifter tempi and has the singers emphasize the drama, while on the earlier recording Schneider takes a more measured and stately approach. Forck also cuts the ballet music that concludes each act, and which may not have been composed by Hasse. If you don't already own a copy of this work, the new recording might be the preferred one. But this earlier recording is a very satisfying discovery, and I'm not rushing out to replace it.

Tisbe's Act I aria "Perduto l'amato bene," in which she begs her father not to force her to marry another man against her will:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w92tQqXCxjM

Perdero l'amato bene rompero quel dolce laccio; ma que ad altro amate in braccio per tua man mi guidi amor! Ah non posso, ah non sia vero adorato genitor. Tanta forza al cor non sento. Mi sgomento il sol pensiero. Basterebbe in quel momento ad uccidermi il dolor.

Should I renounce my love and sever that sweet bond? Should my love for you guide me into the arms of another lover? Oh, I couldn't! It could not be true my dearest father. It is not in my heart's power. I am dismayed by the thought alone. It would be enough at that moment to kill me with pain.

Hasse: Serpentes ignei in deserto. Philippe Jaroussky (Moses), Julia Lezhneva (The Angel), Bruno de Sá (Josue), Carlo Vistoli (Eleazar), Jakub Józef Orliński (Nathanael), David Hansen (Eliab). Les Accents, Thibault Noally, conductor. Erato 2173239904; recorded 2023.

There are fireworks aplenty in Hasse's oratorio Fiery Serpents in the Desert. The work depicts an Old Testament incident during the 40 years Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert after Exodus: God sends venomous snakes to punish the restive Israelites, who can only be saved by reaffirming their faith. The oratorio was written around 1735 for the all-female instrumentalists and vocalists of the Ospedale degli Incurabili orphanage in Venice. Judging from the music in Serpentes ignei in deserto, they must have been extraordinary virtuosi.

In this recording five of the six roles originally sung by women are taken by an all-star lineup of countertenors. Although the presence of perennial favorite Philippe Jaroussky is the reason I bought this for my partner, it is the male sopranist Bruno de Sá who provides the most astonishment.

There is another, older recording on Harmonia Mundi that features a gender-reversed group of soloists in the male roles, including the wonderful mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d'Oustrac along with contralto Annette Markert and sopranos Isabelle Poulenard and Valérie Gabail; countertenor Robert Expert is the Angel. In this live recording the singers are accompanied by Les Paladins conducted by Jérôme Correas. I'm very curious, as the Harmonia Mundi recording matches more closely the historical forces that first performed this work. However, if you are a fan of countertenor singing there is every reason to experience this new recording.

Josue's "Spera, o cor" sung  by Bruno de Sá, accompanied by Les Accents conducted by Thibault Noally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THeA4aWbld0

Spera, o cor, spera, laetare, consolare, veniet lux, veniet laetitia; in moestitia sic afflictum non plorabis. Surge laeta aura splendoris, aura amoris, infelici sede optata cor tranquillum habitatis.

Hope, my heart, hope and rejoice, be comforted: your light will come, your joy will come; you will not weep thus amid affliction and sadness. Arise, joyful breath of splendor, breath of love; though in a place of unhappiness you will live with a peaceful heart.

Invocazioni Mariane. Andreas Scholl (countertenor), Accademia Bizantina, Alessandro Tampieri, conductor. Naïve V5474; recorded 2022.

Andreas Scholl turned 58 this year, and so it's unclear how many more recordings we can expect from him. However, his voice on this album of Marian music of the early and mid-18th century still retains much of its fullness and purity; on this evidence he could continue to perform and record for years to come.

Most of the composers represented are Neapolitan, including Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Pergolesi, and Pasquale Anfossi, and most of the pieces included are vocal or instrumental excerpts from Easter oratorios. All of the works on the disc by these composers were unfamiliar to me, which just emphasizes how much high-quality music of this era remains to be discovered.

The one work that seems out of place is Antonio Vivaldi's Stabat Mater. It's a curious choice for this album because Vivaldi was not from Naples (he was born in Venice and spent most of his professional life in Northern Italy) and Stabat Mater is not an oratorio (although neither is Anfossi's Salve Regina). Also, Scholl has recorded it at least twice before, in 1995 with Ensemble 415 conducted by Chiara Banchini, and in 2017 with Bach Consort Wien conducted by Rubén Dubrovsky. Beautiful as Vivaldi's work is, I wish that Scholl had sought out more under-performed Marian music by other Naples-based composers such as Leonardo Leo or Francesco Durante. 

Finally, a word about the cover showing a furtive-looking and unshaven Scholl in a hoodie and overcoat, looking like he's about to do a smash-and-grab at a jewelry store: not sure what the thought was there, but perhaps there should have been a second one. A curious cover for an otherwise lovely album.

From Anfossi's Salve Regina, "Ad te suspiram":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmKqjf3d60s

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.

To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Music after 1800

Schubert: Lieder. Elly Ameling, soprano, with Rudolf Jansen, piano. Philips 416 294-2; recorded 1984.

This is the second year in a row the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling has appeared on my favorites list (see Favorites of 2024: Recorded music). She had a four-decade-long career, primarily as an exponent of art song; in a different era for the dissemination and reception of classical music, she recorded over a hundred albums. I'm still in the process of discovering her many recordings, which reveal her lovely soprano and her thoughtful approach to each song.

Although over the course of her career she sang music by many 18th- and 19th-century composers, she is known especially as a supreme interpreter of Schubert. This was her second album of Schubert songs with accompanist Rudolf Jansen, her third long-time partner after Jörg Demus and Dalton Baldwin. I look forward to many more years of exploring her extensive discography.

Schubert's "Am Bach im Frühling" (By the brook in springtime), D. 361; the poem is by Franz von Schober:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9PNtx_FX0

Du brachst sie nun, die kalte Rinde, Und rieselst froh und frei dahin, Die Lüfte wehen wieder linde, Und Moos und Gras wird neu und grün. Allein, mit traurigem Gemüte Tret ich wie sonst zu deiner Flut. Der Erde allgemeine Blüte Kommt meinem Herzen nicht zu gut. Hier treiben immer gleiche Winde, Kein Hoffen kommt in meinen Sinn, Als dass ich hier ein Blümchen finde, Blau, wie sie der Erinnrung blühn.

You have broken now the frozen crust, and ripple along, joyful and free; the breezes blow mild again, moss and grass are fresh and green. Alone, with sorrowful thoughts, I come as before to your waters; the blossoming of the whole earth does not gladden my heart. Here the same winds forever blow, no hope cheers my spirit, save that I find a flower here, blue, like the blossoms of remembrance.

Other favorites of 2025:

• Books
• Live and streamed performances
• Movies and television

16 December 1775–2025

What the well-dressed lapel is wearing this year. With profound thanks to AG.

Favorites of 2025: Live and streamed performances

As always, we experienced many wonderful musical performances this year, both live and streaming. From more than two dozen choices, I've listed the eight most memorable, plus one honorable mention.

Two great recitals

Two great recitals bookended the year, the first from a singer entering the middle period of her career, and the second from one close to the end of her career.

Lise Davidsen with Malcolm Martineau (piano). Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, 4 February 2025. Produced by Cal Performances.

Lise Davidsen accompanied by Malcolm Martineau at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, Tuesday 4 February 2025. Photo credit: Katie Ravas for Drew Alitzer Photography. Image source: KQED.org

Ten years after bursting onto the international opera stage by winning the top prize in both the Operalia and Queen Sonja vocal competitions, the acclaimed dramatic soprano Lise Davidsen, accompanied by the great Malcolm Martineau, gave her first Bay Area recital. She displayed a rich and opulent lower register and high notes that rang out with an almost shocking power. She also revealed an ability to mesmerize an audience with her soft singing, attentiveness to words, and emotional expressiveness. The first song in her program, Edvard Grieg's "Dereinst, Gedanke mein":

https://youtu.be/3TonfA2SsKY

Dereinst, Gedanke mein (Emanuel Geibel)	One day, my thoughts
Dereinst, Gedanke mein, Wirst ruhig sein. Läßt Liebesglut Dich still nicht werden, In kühler Erden, Da schläfst du gut, Dort ohne Lieb' Und ohne Pein Wirst ruhig sein. Was du im Leben Nicht hast gefunden, Wenn es entschwunden, Wird's dir gegeben, Dann ohne Wunden Und ohne Pein Wirst ruhig sein.	One day, my thoughts, You will find peace. If love's passion disturbs your repose, In the cool earth You will sleep deeply: Without love And without pain You will find peace. What in life You have not found When it is ended Will be given to you; Then without wounds And without pain You will find peace.

I decided to attend this recital at almost the last minute, spurred by a $25 per ticket sale. I am so glad I did—it was one of my peak musical experiences of the year. For more, see Lise Davidsen in recital.

Anne Sofie von Otter with Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano). Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley, 5 October 2025. Produced by Cal Performances.

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano. Photo credit: Ewa Marie Rundquist. Image source: Cal Performances

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter turned 70 this year. She has had a long and illustrious career in concert, in opera, and on recordings. If her concert in Berkeley's Hertz Hall in October was her last public appearance in the Bay Area, it was a fitting farewell: a performance of Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang (Swan Song, 1829).

With the passage of time von Otter's voice has lost a touch of the purity of tone, perfection of intonation, and sustained breath support so evident in her earlier recordings. However, her communicative power as an artist remains undiminished.

From one of those earlier recordings, Edvard Grieg's "En Svane" (A swan); von Otter's accompanist is Bengt Forsberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee6T4RsZd4I

En Svane Min hvide svane du stumme, du stille, hverken slag eller trille lod sangrøst ane. Angst beskyttende alfen, som sover, altid lyttende gled du henover. Men sidste mødet, da eder og øjne var lønlige løgne, ja da, da lød det! I toners føden du slutted din bane. Du sang i døden; du var dog en svane!

A swan My white swan, so mute, so silent, without warble or trill let your song be heard. Anxiously protecting the elf who sleeps, always listening, you glided away. But at the last meeting when oaths and eyes were secret lies, yes then, then it sounded! In music’s birth you ended your life. You sang in death; you were a true swan!

For more, see Anne Sofie von Otter: Swan Song.

Two exceptional concerts from American Bach Soloists

A Baroque New Year's Eve at the Opera. Maya Kherani, soprano; Eric Jurenas, countertenor. American Bach Soloists, Jeffrey Thomas, artistic director. 31 December 2024, Herbst Theater, San Francisco.

Soprano Maya Kherani. Image source: MayaKherani.com

For the past half-decade or so (pandemic shutdown excluded) we've rung out the old year and rung in the new with American Bach Soloists' "A Baroque New Year's Eve at the Opera." Each New Year's Eve ABS artistic director Jeffrey Thomas brings together two vocal soloists and the superlative ABS orchestra in a well-selected program of arias and duets from Baroque opera, and each year the singers and the program are different.

In 2024 the soloists were E&I favorite Maya Kherani with a singer new to us, Eric Jurenas. In addition to delightful selections for each singer from Handel works both relatively familiar (Partenope, Rinaldo, Ariodante) and much less so (Riccardo Primo, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Flavio), as well as the gorgeous Caesar-Cleopatra duet from Giulio Cesare, the program included relative rarities from operas by Carl Heinrich Graun and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

The opening aria in the ABS concert, "L'amor ed il destin" (Love and Fortune), as sung by Kherani as the title character in Handel's Partenope in a recording of the 2018 Opera NEO production:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIm40VDTwPk

L’Amor e il destin Combatterà per me; Avrò corone al crin E non catene al piè.

In my Defence to combat now, Both Love and Fate shall meet; A radiant Crown shall bind my Brow, And not a Chain my Feet.

The occasion was enhanced for us by the presence of dear friends, who will be with us again for this year's edition featuring the vocal soloists Sarah Coit (mezzo-soprano) and Matthew Hill (tenor). We're very much looking forward to this most festive occasion.

A Grand Tour. Julie Bosworth and Morgan Balfour, sopranos; Kyle Sanchez Tingzon, countertenor; Agnes Vojtkó, contralto; Jesse Blumberg, baritone. American Bach Soloists and Cantorei, Jeffrey Thomas, artistic director. Seen 26 October 2025, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco.

Morgan Balfour. Image source: MorganBalfour.com

For the inaugural concert of American Bach's 37th season, artistic director Jeffrey Thomas used the Grand Tour as the selection principle for four Baroque masterworks: Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, "Eternal Source of Light Divine" (1713), representing London; Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major (c. 1725), representing Leipzig; Vivaldi's Gloria in D major (c. 1715), representing Venice; and Handel's Dixit Dominus (1707), representing Rome. Bach's Orchestral Suite, a work perhaps not fully in alignment with the program's theme (it's unlikely that a Grand Tourist would have heard it), was nonetheless superbly performed. And each of the three vocal works featured the excellent soloists and thrilling contributions from Cantorei, the ABS chorus.

From Dixit Dominus, "De torrente in via bibet" (He shall drink of of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up his head), beautifully sung in concert by Julie Bosworth and Morgan Balfour, here sung by Annick Massis and Magdalena Kožená accompanied by Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski:

https://youtu.be/XJ42ApWadwA

For more, see A Grand Tour: American Bach Soloists.

Another brilliant Ars Minerva production

L'Ercole amante. Zachary Gordin (Ercole), Aura Veruni (Giunone), Melissa Sondhi (Venere/Pasithea), Kindra Scharich (Deianira), Max Ary (Hyllo), Lila Khazoum (Iole), Sara Couden (Paggio), Nina Jones (Licco), Nick Volkert (Nettuno/Eutyro/Sonno/Mercurio). Céline Ricci, director; Matthew Dirst, conductor/harpsichord; Entropy, projections designer; Marina Polakoff, costume designer. Seen 16 November 2025, ODC Theater, San Francisco.

Max Ary (Hyllo) and Lila Khazoum (Iole) in Ars Minerva's production of L'Ercole amante. Image source: Ars Minerva

For its landmark 10th production, Ars Minerva Executive Artistic Director Céline Ricci chose for the first time to stage an opera by a woman, Antonia Bembo. L'Ercole amante features abduction, the forced parting of true lovers, infidelities, jealousies, intervention by angry gods, raging tempests, attempted suicide, attempted murder, a descent into the Underworld, and a poisoned wedding cloak. It's your basic Baroque opera, in other words, and in the assured hands of Ricci and her team was given a visually spectacular and aurally accomplished production. Another wonderful discovery by the pioneering Ricci; her lead will be followed next year by the Opéra National de Paris, which will perform L'Ercole amante in June. We are fortunate indeed to be able to see modern staged premières of such unjustly neglected works thanks to Ricci's passionate advocacy.

A taste of Bembo's music, from a recording released this year of a European concert performance of L'Ercole amante inspired by Ars Minerva's 2020 "Cocktails and Chit-Chat" episode on Bembo. In this scene, Giunone with the aid of Sleep causes Ercole to fall into a deep slumber; she then urges Iole to kill him. Giunone is sung by Flore Van Meerssche and Iole by Anita Rosati, accompanied by Il Gusto Barocco conducted by Jörg Halubek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXWR01rgym0

For more, see Hercules in love: Antonia Bembo and Ars Minerva.

Our season of Handel opera

George Frideric Handel, attributed to Balthasar Denner, 1726–1728. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG 1976

The year 2025 marks the 340th anniversary of Handel's birth. By coincidence or design, the past season featured concert performances of four Handel operas, three live and one streamed. In semi-chronological order:

Acis and Galatea (1718/1739). Nola Richardson (Galatea), James Reese (Acis), Douglas Ray Williams (Polyphemus), Michael Jankosky (Damon), Agnes Vojtkó (Corydon). American Bach Soloists, Jeffrey Thomas, artistic director and conductor. St Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco, 23 February 2025.

Polyphème surprenant Acis et Galatée (Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea) [detail] by Auguste Ottin, 1863. Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris. Image credit: Daniel Stockman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

John Gay's text for Acis and Galatea draws on Ovid's Metamorphoses for its swiftly-moving tragedy: the shepherd Acis and the nymph Galatea love one another, but the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus kills Acis by crushing him with a boulder. The sorrowing Galatea turns Acis' blood into a "gentle murm'ring stream," and Acis himself into its god.

The scholar and critic Stanley Sadie wrote that "Acis and Galatea represents the high point of pastoral opera in England, indeed anywhere." Despite the tragic subject, Handel—perhaps inspired the bucolic surroundings of the country estate of Cannons, where the opera was composed—filled the work with beautiful pastoral melodies, and the words "pleasure," "delight," "desire," and "love" recur throughout.

The performance by the forces of the American Bach Soloists directed by Jeffrey Thomas fully brought out the delightful qualities of the music, and the three principals gave exceptional performances. For more, please see the full-length review of Acis and Galatea.

Galatea's air "Heart, the seat of soft delight," here performed by Teresa Wakim accompanied by the Boston Early Music Festival Vocal & Chamber Ensembles directed by Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs:

https://youtu.be/sATWpLlyxvw

Heart, the seat of soft delight, Be thou now a fountain bright! Purple be no more thy blood, Glide thou like a crystal flood. Rock, thy hollow womb disclose! The bubbling fountain, lo! it flows Through the plains he joys to rove, Murm'ring still his gentle love.

Alceste (1750). Lauren Snouffer (Calliope), Aaron Sheehan (Apollo), with Leandra Ramm (soloist) and Jeffrey Fields (Charon). Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, Peter Whelan, conductor. Herbst Theater, San Francisco, 7 March 2025.

La mort d'Alceste, ou l'Héroïsme de l'amour conjugal [The death of Alcestis] (detail) by Jean-François Pierre Peyron, 1785. Image credit: Louvre, Paris. Image source: Speakerty

Alceste, music composed for the interludes of the play Alcestis by Tobias Smollett, was never produced during Handel's lifetime, and has rarely been performed or recorded since. None of the main characters of Smollett's play—King Admetus, who has been summoned by Death; Alcestis, his devoted wife who chooses to die in his place; and Hercules, the hero who rescues her from the underworld and restores her to life and to her husband—have singing roles in Handel's work. Instead, Alceste features the muse Calliope, the god Apollo, and the Stygian ferryman Charon, who comment on the play's action.

Despite its neglect, Alceste contains some very appealing music. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performance made a strong case for the viability of the work in concert. The roles of Calliope and Apollo were pleasingly sung by Lauren Snouffer and Aaron Sheehan, respectively, while the Philharmonia Chorale directed by Valérie Sainte-Agathe made a substantial contribution to the success of the performance—not only with its usual superb unison and intonation in the rousing choral numbers, but also by supplying two soloists. For more, please see the full-length review of Alceste.

Calliope's "Gentle Morpheus, son of night," performed by soprano Lucy Crowe with the Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn:

https://youtu.be/NYZCPr9bM-A

Gentle Morpheus, son of night, Hither speed thy airy flight! And his weary senses steep In the balmy dew of sleep. That when bright Aurora's beams Glad the world with golden streams, He, like Phoebus, blithe and gay, May re-taste the healthful day.

Ariodante (1735). Megan Moore (Ariodante), Amanda Forsythe (Ginevra), Ann McMahon Quintero (Polinesso), Richard Pittsinger (Lurcanio), Robin Johannsen (Dalinda), Brandon Cedel (King of Scotland), Jason McStoots (Odoardo). Boston Baroque conducted by Martin Pearlman. Streamed performance of 27 April 2025, available on demand at https://baroque.boston/ariodante

Lurcanio prevents his brother Ariodante from throwing himself on his sword when he sees Polinesso entering Ginevra's apartments. Illustration by an unknown engraver after Thomas Coxon (1591) after Girolamo Porro (1584), for Canto V of Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, translated by Sir John Harington, 1634 edition. Image source: Internet Archive

Ariodante is set in the court of the King of Scotland. The knight Ariodante loves the king's daughter Ginevra, and she returns his love. But Ariodante has a rival for Ginevra's favors and the throne, Polinesso. To add to the romantic complications, Ginevra's lady-in-waiting Dalinda loves Polinesso, while Ariodante's brother Lurcanio loves Dalinda.

Polinesso exploits Dalinda's love and asks her to make an assignation with him while dressed in Ginevra's clothes. Ariodante witnesses them and believes that Ginevra is unfaithful; he flees the court and is later reported to have killed himself. Ginevra is condemned to death by her father, unless a champion is found who is willing to defend her honor. . .

Ariodante is among Handel's most dramatically effective operas, and Boston Baroque's production featured a good-to-excellent cast. The costumes did not always reflect the characters' aristocratic status, but with Handel at the peak of his powers minor details didn't matter. For more, please see the full-length review of Ariodante.

Ginevra's "Il mio crudel martoro" (My cruel suffering), performed by Lynne Dawson with Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski:

https://youtu.be/BsEDGj3BDu4

Il mio crudel martoro crescer non può di più; morte, dove sei tu, che ancor non moro? Vieni; de’ mali miei, no, che il peggior non sei, ma sei ristoro.

My cruel suffering Surely can become no greater; Death, why do you tarry, Why am I still alive? Come, Death; you are not The worst of my evils But will be my relief.

Honorable mention, Handel opera division

Giulio Cesare (1724). Christophe Dumaux (Giulio Cesare), Louise Alder (Cleopatra), Beth Taylor (Cornelia), Paula Murrihy (Sesto), John Holiday (Tolomeo), Morgan Pearse (Achilla). The English Concert, Harry Bicket, conductor. Produced by Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA, 27 April 2025.

César remet Cléopâtre sur le trône d'Egypte [Caesar offers Cleopatra the throne of Egypt], by Pierre de Cortone (Pietro da Cortona), ca. 1637. Image source: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

I wish I could say that details didn't matter in The English Concert's performance of Giulio Cesare. The poor stage direction (uncredited) frequently undermined the characters and drama. Handel's superb music and the excellent vocal and instrumental performances overcame the poor direction, but it remained a serious distraction—thus the honorable mention. For more, see the full-length review of Giulio Cesare.

Cleopatra's "V'adoro, pupille" (Your charming eyes) performed by Magdalena Kožená (with Marijana Mijanovic as Cesare) accompanied by Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski:

https://youtu.be/m-U92nkrEzM

V’adoro, pupille, saette d’amore, le vostre faville son grate nel sen. Pietose vi brama il mesto mio core, ch'ognora vi chiama l’amato suo ben.

Your charming Eyes My ravish'd Soul adores, The thrilling Pain My Heart with Pleasure bears. When you with Pity look, My Sorrows cease; For you alone Can heal the Wounds you gave.

Other favorites of 2025:

• Books
• Recordings
• Movies and television

Favorites of 2025: Books

It's time for my annual survey of favorite books that were first read in the previous 12 months. They are listed below by category in the order in which they were read:

Favorite Fiction of 2025

	Emma Donoghue: Slammerkin "Slammerkin" is an 18th-century term with a double meaning, both "a loose gown" and "a slovenly [with the additional implication of unchaste] woman." The novel is based on an actual 1764 trial of a maid and seamstress accused of murdering her mistress, and is like a version of William Hogarth's The Harlot's Progress from the perspective of its doomed heroine Moll Hackabout. A scholar of literature by women as well as lesbian culture, Emma Donoghue writes with all the fierce energy of her 14-year-old protagonist's yearnings, and brings both 18th-century London and her flawed heroine to vivid, visceral life. She shows us that Mary Saunders is not only a victim; she has agency and makes choices, even if many of them are unwise, or bring harm to herself or others. Be forewarned: Mary's world, and her fate, are hard and grim. For more, please see "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know: Three historical novels."
	Margaret Oliphant: The Rector and The Doctor's Family Margaret Oliphant, one of the most prolific Victorian writers, published 98 novels before her death in 1897 at age 69. Oliphant's writing supported two brothers, two nieces, a nephew, and her two adult sons, all of whom lived off her earnings from publication, and all of whom predeceased her. So perhaps it's no surprise that the contrast between capable women and weak, ineffectual, vacillating, indolent, selfish, or just plain helpless men is a recurring theme in Oliphant's fiction. As Nettie Underwood says in The Doctor's Family, "a woman is, of course, twenty times the use a man is, in most things." The Rector and The Doctor's Family brings together two works in Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford series. Morley Proctor, the title character of the 35-page The Rector, has only recently taken up his post as the new Rector of Carlingford. He is suddenly called to the deathbed of one of his parishioners, who begs for some spiritual ease in her final moments. But Proctor, a socially awkward bachelor scholar who has taken his new post primarily to provide for his widowed mother, has no idea how to provide it. In The Doctor's Family, Edward Rider is a young doctor struggling to establish a medical practice in Carlingford. His precarious situation is made catastrophically worse by the arrival in town of his brother Fred, an alcoholic and a gambler, who is quickly followed by his wife, children, and his wife's pretty younger sister Nettie. The doctor, smitten with Nettie, is given pause by the prospect of Fred and his family hanging on as his dependents for the rest of their lives, and of Fred's deservedly poor reputation besmirching his own. The stories brought together in The Rector and The Doctor's Family span nearly the full range of tone that Oliphant commands in the Chronicles of Carlingford, from the appalling horror of death to the familiar comedy of acute social discomfiture. For more, please see "Twenty times the use a man is": Two Chronicles of Carlingford
	Sarah Waters: Fingersmith "Finger-smith" is 19th-century slang for pickpocket or petty thief, but it has the broader connotation of someone adept with their fingers, which can also be interpreted sexually (as Waters, whose first novel also had a Victorian slang title with a sexual meaning, Tipping the Velvet (1998), surely intended). Drawing on novels by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Fingersmith is told from the points of view of two 17-year-old orphans. Sue Trinker has been raised in Mrs. Sucksby's Lant Street lodging-house in London's gritty Southwark and trained in thievery. Maud Lilly is an heiress who lives on the country estate of her rich uncle, a connoisseur of pornography who gets an erotic charge out of having Maud read rare volumes from his collection aloud to him and his friends. Sue joins a plot conceived by a thief nicknamed "Gentleman": she will seek employment as Maud's lady's maid, and convince her of the sincerity of Gentleman's professions of love. In return, Sue will receive a share of the spoils once Gentleman elopes with Maud, locks her in a madhouse and seizes control of her fortune. Only, who is betraying whom? For more on the novel and the 2005 BBC television adaptation, please see "Fingersmith." Waters' novel was also the basis of Park Chan-wook's 2016 film The Handmaiden.
	Sarah Waters: Affinity Set in late-Victorian London and suffused with an atmosphere of psychic dread, Affinity is reminiscent of Henry James' Turn of the Screw. Margaret Prior is well-to-do, unmarried, and is recovering from devastating emotional losses. In order to find a sense of purpose, she begins regular visits to a women's prison. She finds herself becoming inexorably drawn to one of the inmates, Selina Dawes. Selina is a spiritualist who held séances where she summoned a sometimes playful, sometimes malevolent spirit called Peter Quick. She has been imprisoned because at one of her séances a woman died under mysterious circumstances. Although initially doubting of Selina's supernatural powers, Margaret soon experiences otherwise inexplicable occurrences. Could Selina really be a medium between our world and the spirit world of Peter Quick? Affinity was adapted for ITV by renowned screenwriter Andrew Davies (Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Wives and Daughters, and Waters' Tipping the Velvet among many others). It's high on my watch list for 2026.

Honorable mention

David Lodge: Changing Places A roman à clef with no need for a clef, David Lodge's Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses takes place in the late 1960s at a very thinly disguised University of Birmingham ("Rummidge") and UC Berkeley ("Euphoric State," situated in the town of "Plotinus"). If you have any familiarity with the Berkeley campus and the Bay Area, you'll instantly identify Howl Plaza (Sproul Plaza, site of many demonstrations), Mather Gate (Sather Gate), Dealer Hall (Wheeler Hall), Cable Avenue (Telegraph Avenue), Pythagoras Drive (Euclid Avenue), Ashland (Oakland), Esseph (San Francisco), Modern Times Bookshop (City Lights Books), etc. etc. Two academics—Rummidge's socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and academically undistinguished English lecturer Philip Swallow, and Euphoric's star literary theorist Morris Zapp—take part in a six-month exchange program, leaving their wives (in Zapp's case, soon to be ex-wife) behind. As you may anticipate, more gets swapped than their campus offices. And as you also may expect, Zapp's arrival galvanizes the inert English Department at Rummidge, while Swallow is transformed by the academic openness, political ferment and sexual freedom that he encounters at Euphoric State. Soon he finds himself jailed after being caught up in the protests over the People's Garden (People's Park), and then having a very uncomfortable conversation with his wife while on the air during a student radio call-in show. The novel is like a Rossinian farce, where confusion reigns for most of the duration, but everyone finds happiness (or at least consolation) in the end. Like a Rossini comedy, it's lively and fun; also like a Rossini comedy, it's pretty clear from the outset where these characters are heading—thus the honorable mention.

Biggest disappointment

Ariel Dorfman: Allegro Ariel Dorfman's Allegro seemed as though it had been written especially for me and those very much like me: lovers of Mozart's operas with a keen interest in late-18th century music and culture. But as Dorfman's over-expository narrative, clunky language, and all-too-fathomable mystery unfolded, I felt instead as though I were reading a prequel to Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Like Amadeus, Dorfman's Allegro is factitious and anachronistic, and I found myself increasingly dismayed as the novel progressed. The main redeeming feature of the novel comes after its end: a "Playlist Companion to Allegro" of the music that "inspired the author as he wrote and that accompanied the characters as they lived their real and fictional lives" (Author's Note). As I wrote in my full-length review, "any opportunity to explore (or renew acquaintance with) the music of Mozart, Handel, J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach, and Carl Friedrich Abel is recommendable; if only Dorfman's novel were more so."

Favorite Nonfiction of 2025

	Charles King: Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah In 1741 Handel was facing a crisis. In the winter season he had witnessed the failure of his Italian opera, Deidamia, which received only three performances before being ignominiously pulled from the stage. The disaster of Deidamia brought Handel's career as an opera composer to an end. At this low point, two serendipitous events provided Handel with an opportunity to rescue his fortunes. He received an invitation to put on a concert series in Dublin for the 1741–42 season, and he was sent a new libretto by his cantankerous collaborator Charles Jennens. Jennens had previously provided the word books for the English-language oratorios Saul (1739) and L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (The Active Man, the Pensive Man, and the Moderate Man, 1740). His new libretto consisted of excerpts from the King James Bible and Apocrypha about the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Jennens wrote to his friend Edward Holdsworth on 10 July 1741 about the new work, "I hope he will lay out his whole Genius & Skill upon it, that the Composition will excell all his former Compositions, as the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah." The story of Messiah's composition in just three weeks; the near-cancellation of its first performances due to an edict from Jonathan Swift (yes, that Jonathan Swift); and the scandal of the notorious adulteress Susannah Cibber, who, while trying to escape from her abusive husband, wound up in Dublin and sang in Messiah's Holy Week première, are vividly retold in Charles King's Every Valley. For more, please see "Every Valley: Handel's Messiah."
	Susan Ford: What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) In What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why), Persuasions editor Susan Allen Ford examines the reading preferences of Austen's characters as a key to understanding them more deeply. In my post series devoted to her book I looked at each of Austen's canonical novels to see what Ford's perspective could tell us about her heroines. Of course, the Gothic novels that obsess Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, and the Romantic poets passionately read by Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, are obvious inspirations of their imaginative lives. But I was surprised to learn of the significance of conduct books, including the derided Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice; the play Lover's Vows, which was thought indecent, to demure Fanny Price in Mansfield Park; Madame de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore, a novel about moral education, to the title character in Emma; and the poems of Byron and Scott, as well as Matthew Prior's Henry and Emma, in sustaining Anne Elliot's steadfast love over the eight long years of estrangement from Captain Wentworth in Persuasion. For more, please see "So rapturous a delight" (Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey), "I am not a great reader" (Pride and Prejudice), "To be a renter, a chuser of books!" (Mansfield Park), "Meaning to read more" (Emma), and "I will not allow books to prove anything" (Persuasion).
	Ashley Kahn: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece The Miles Davis sextet's Kind of Blue regularly tops listener's and critic's polls of the greatest jazz albums of all time. Ashley Kahn's book is a deep dive into the recording sessions, held on March 2 and April 22, 1959, and the long and continuing afterlife of the album. Kahn shows that three key legends about Kind of Blue—that the album comprises only first takes, that none of the musicians had seen any of the music before, and that Davis composed all the music—are false. He also notes the many errors that plagued the production of the album: the first side was mastered at the wrong speed, John Coltrane's volume level is changed mid-solo on one track, and on the cover the musicians were mis-credited and the track listing frequently mis-ordered. But despite the false legends, credit controversies and production errors, the album that Davis and his brilliant collaborators produced together remains one of the greatest achievements in jazz. For more, please see "Kind of Blue: The Making of a Jazz Masterpiece."

Honorable mention

Errol Morris: The Ashtray (Or the Man Who Denied Reality) This book is a coffee-table book of philosophy: beautifully produced, copiously illustrated, and heavily annotated in the margins (the best place for a note to be). The title comes from an incident in Morris's career as a graduate student at Princeton: his Ph.D. advisor, the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, once threw a full, "massive" cut-glass ashtray at Morris during an argument in Kuhn's office. The book is Morris's delayed (and for Kuhn, posthumous) response, an attack on the basis of Kuhn's influential 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. That work is a distillation and generalization of Kuhn's earlier book, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. In examining the replacement of the earth-centered Ptolemaic universe by the Copernican heliocentric system, Kuhn identified features that did not fit the typical picture of steady, incremental scientific progress through observation and experiment. Instead, Kuhn posited that scientific observations were carried out within a conceptual framework Kuhn called a "paradigm," which not only determined how scientists interpreted their data, but what questions could be asked. Such periods of "normal science" can last for centuries, even as anomalies—observations not well accounted for under the reigning paradigm—accumulate. The Ptolemaic system lasted for over a thousand years, growing ever more complex as astronomical observations became more precise. [1] Kuhn thought that during scientific revolutions, a "paradigm shift" occurs, in which one conceptual framework is replaced by another. Paradigm shifts are rarely instantaneous, as they would be if science were a dispassionate seeking after incontrovertible truths. Instead, the scientific consensus has to change, which sometimes requires the fiercely committed advocates of the older paradigm to die before the new paradigm is generally accepted. And sometimes social, political or religious forces slow a paradigm shift. Copernicus published his treatise on the heliocentric universe in 1543; ninety years later, in 1633, Galileo was forced by the Roman Inquisition to recant his defense of heliocentrism published in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. It wasn't until a further half-century after Galileo's trial that the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun attained widespread acceptance. For Morris, Kuhn's picture of science as deeply embedded in consensus mental frameworks—that is, his view of the scientific system as a culture—denies objective reality. And he contests Kuhn's claim that new paradigms are "incommensurable" with the paradigms that they have replaced, pointing out that Einstein's relativity equations are reduced to Newtonian mechanics at human spatial and temporal scales. If Einstein's theory contains Newton's, they can't be incommensurable. But they are—from the perspective of Newtonian physics. Newtonian mass is a fixed and inherent property of an object; Einsteinian mass varies with an object's velocity, which is different for observers in different frames of reference. So in Einsteinian physics mass can have different values at the same instant for observers in different relative motion with respect to an object (thus "relativity"). In Newtonian physics, gravity is an inherent property of an object with mass; in Einsteinian physics, gravity is the result of the distortion of space-time caused by an object with mass. So in the two systems the concepts of mass and gravity are radically different (or, as we might say, incommensurable), even if on a human scale their effects look the same. I haven't yet finished The Ashtray. It's a dense book with notes on virtually every page, and will take some more time to work through. It does seem to me, though, at the halfway point, that Morris is particularly focussed on some issues in the philosophy of language, and has not yet engaged with some of Kuhn's central ideas about the nature of science and scientific change. More to come, probably, as I continue reading. Many thanks to the friend who gave me this book, and to the friend who helped me understand more concretely some of the difficulties I was encountering with it.

Other favorites of 2025:

• Live and streamed performances
• Recordings
• Movies and television

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1. A more recent example of normal science in operation: Einstein's equations of general relativity predicted that the universe was expanding, a prediction confirmed by the observations of William Hubble. In the late 1980s the general assumption among cosmologists was that gravitational attraction between all the bodies in the universe was slowing its expansion. Eventually gravity would bring the expansion to a halt, and then reverse it. Ultimately the contracting universe would end in a Big Crunch, in which all matter collapsed together into a singularity. Another Big Bang could then occur, creating a new universe, and this cycle might repeat infinitely.
   
   Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter had the key insight that the redshift of the light from a certain type of supernova that reached a consistent peak brightness could be used to determine the rate of the universe's expansion. But when he was ready to make his observations, Perlmutter could not find an observatory with large, advanced telescopes that was willing to allow him to book time. Supernovae are relatively rare and random phenomena, and Perlmutter's proposed method was untested. So the gatekeepers of highly desirable telescope time simply gave priority to other, less fundamental projects that they assumed had a greater likelihood of success.
   
   When, over about a decade of scrounging scattered nights of telescope time, Perlmutter was finally able to gather enough data for a statistically significant sample, his calculations produced a shocking result: the universe's rate of expansion was increasing with time, not constant or slowing. The first implication of this result is that there will be no Big Crunch; the universe will simply continue to expand infinitely. The second implication is that either there is another previously unknown constituent of the universe beyond matter and radiation, or that Einstein's equations do not apply on the scale of the universe and need to be modified. For this work Perlmutter (and two members of another team that reached the same conclusion at the same time) received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
   
   One theory is that the accelerating expansion is caused by "dark energy," a form of energy that produces a repulsive force. If so, dark energy must make up two-thirds of the total mass-energy of the universe, and ordinary observable matter—all the interstellar dust, asteroids, comets, moons, planets, stars, black holes, galaxies, etc.—only 5%. The remaining 27% of the universe is largely made up of "dark matter," which is not directly observable and exerts a countervailing attractive force to the repulsive force of dark energy. All this sounds a bit like the convoluted epicycles needed to make the Ptolemaic model of the universe correspond with observation; we may be in need of yet another cosmological paradigm shift.