Sandrine Piau

Sandrine Piau, a French soprano of fierce musical intelligence, already has a New York following based on her illustrious, varied recording ventures and her impressive but infrequent local appearances in Baroque music and opera. Piau’s long-awaited recital debut as a song interpreter comes this week at Weill Recital Hall, where she’ll offer a typically challenging program interspersing classic French melodies (Fauré, Chausson, Debussy) with works from two contrasting masters of Viennese modernism, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky.

Piau’s latest disc, meanwhile, finds her once again in one of her fields of mastery: the music of Handel, in which she’s joined by the very stylish Accademia Bizantina under Stefano Montanari. As is too often the case in today’s aria programs, we get orchestral filler—though at least those three tracks are well played, with persuasive continuo work on bassoon, oboe and trumpet.

The vocal selections derive from Handel’s brilliant oratorios, ranging from the most familiar (Messiah, from which we hear an exhilarating “Rejoice greatly”) to genuine rarities like Joseph and His Brethren (1744) and Alexander Balus (1746), both of which furnish singer and orchestra with beautiful, compelling material. Two stunning selections from early Italian oratorios bookend the English-language settings. Piau, comprehensible and communicative, isn’t idiomatic in vowel sounds (unlike her excellent guest partner for one ravishing duet, tenor Topi Lehtipuu). That caveat aside, this is a highly worthwhile CD.—David Shengold

Sandrine Piau sings at Weill Recital Hall Fri 9.

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