The premiere of "Belshazzar" took place in 1745 - under difficult conditions. The pragmatic Handel was not afraid to revise his work in order to adapt it to the various constraints of the premiere and various revivals. He was astonishingly unscrupulous in his approach, accepting the most appalling compromises with mutilations or the replacement of entire passages, thus sacrificing his artistic inspiration to make further performances possible. For this recording, we have chosen what we consider to be the most successful of the various versions of "Belshazzar" that existed in Handel's time. This restored version contains all the splendor of the work with the best of the music and a coherent libretto. (William Christie)
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