Peter Neumann ist der erste, dessen Aufnahme die zweite Fassung der ›Johannes-Passion‹ in einem Durchlauf hören läßt. Dies ist insofern wichtig, als durch die Änderungen die Aspekte ›Schuld‹ und ›Sünde‹ stärker akzentuiert werden, die theologische Aussage des Werks also in eine etwas andere Richtung weist. Das eigentlich Bemerkenswerte der vorliegenden Einspielung ist der Einsatz einer großen Kirchenorgel als Continuoinstrument, was den Arien und Chorälen eine ganz eigene Färbung verleiht.

Joshua is not one of Handel’s great oratorios. Although it is patterned on the previous year’s Judas Maccabaeus with a perfunctory love story tacked on, Morrell’s mediocre libretto did not inspire Handel to the heights of their earlier collaboration. But there are some very good things in Joshua , and second-rate Handel is better than music from some composers’ top drawer, so Joshua is worthy of the occasional performance and recording.

Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ text for the passion oratorio, later named after him, is among the best-known Passion librettos of the early 18th century. This version is the first recording on CD of the work based on the copy made by J S Bach himself. It is distinguished from the better-known version by a different text for the opening chorus.

Belshazzar is one of Handel’s works that could be called a total failure at the time of its first performance. Premiered in 1745 to a nearly empty house, contemporary reports say that it was a disastrously bad performance. This oratorio never gained popularity in Handel’s lifetime, and he only performed it twice after the first performance. Yet this is no minor work. Full of great Handelian arias, and stirring choral movements, this oratorio deserves to stand among his greatest works. Drama and energy play like a flame through the pages of this work. It has everything a Handel oratorio needs: tension, excitement, and attractive melodies.

When Handel had a difficult time as opera manager, in the 1730s, he turned to oratorios, which required neither the expensive Italian soloists nor complicated sets. Saul, based on the First Book of Samuel, written in 1738, and first performed in 1739, was relatively popular, with Handel reviving it several times through 1754. With all of the dramatic features of Handel’s oratorios, this work, featuring a bass in the starring role, opens with a festive four-movement instrumental Symphony.

Even though it has hardly been performed and rarely recorded “L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato” has to be counted as one of Handel’s most beautiful and musically valuable oratorios. Its lack of popularity is solely due to the complexities of performance and the un-dramatic subject matter. In so doing, Handel bestowed some of his best music upon Charles Jennen’s reworking of John Milton’s text. With this recording, Peter Neumann together with the Cologne Chamber Choir and the Collegium Cartusianum have brought this wonderful work to life, guaranteeing that it will sit proudly amongst the other oratorio works of Handel.

Written in the summer of 1749, Theodora was premiered in London at Covent Garden Theatre on 16 March 1750. This work, which Handel considered his finest oratorio, was a failure at first - Handel said bitterly that the hall was so empty that "there was room enough to dance there." Part of this failure could be explained by the earthquake that hit London in February of the same year and caused the upper classes to flee the city, but another possibility is that the subject matter of the oratorio - the rebellion of a woman against the power of the state - was a bit ahead of its time.

The story of the innocent Susanna–whose nude bathing in a stream so excited two elders in her community that they charged her with all sorts of dirty things–is from the Apocrypha. Near the story's close, the young Israelite Daniel, clearly a budding lawyer, disproves the elders' claims by having each explain certain details without the other in the room. (In the Carlisle Floyd version, there's a twist, and the ending is horrifyingly different.) The story, as Handel and his unknown librettist tell it, takes more than two and a half hours. What we get in place of nail-biting drama is a marvelous portrait of the chaste Susanna, her trusting husband, Joacim, and the lascivious elders. There's also a great concentration on the plot's rural setting. Arias are filled with nature–Handel offers us a lovely pastoral setting, with a could-be-tragic story at its core; but neither Nature nor Susanna's good nature wind up sullied.

This is the third English Oratorio by Handel, composed in 1733 for the graduation ceremony at Oxford. It is in 3 acts to a libretto by Samuel Humphreys after the stage drama Athalie by Jean Racine. Incidentally, this was Racine's last tragedy penned in 1691. This biblical account taken from Kings 2, centres on the theme of the triumph of God through the revenge performed by his followers on those who blaspheme and oppose him.

As for the Masses, Mozart kept to the traditional plan in six sections (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), even when the inpression is that the sections are more numerous (as many as 21 in the "Orphanage" Mass), it is actually a matter of sub-sections, of varying number according to the requirements of the particular work, including famous and impressive settings of the 'Laudamus te' and 'Et incarnatus est'.