Don't expect a steady disco beat on the
Lumiere String Quartet's Hooked on Handel, which features the composer's music in arrangements for string quartet that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the pumped-up pieces in K-Tel's Hooked on Classics series. The title is used here merely as an attention grabber, and not an especially original one; that cliché and the finger-snapping caricature of Handel on the cover appear to be miscalculations that do nothing to advance this group's cause or encourage listeners to take this CD seriously. Musically, however, the
Lumiere String Quartet has a lot to offer, and its performances of movements from Handel's Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks, and other Baroque works are intelligent and expressive, despite a few problems of pitch and tone that only intermittently mar the performances. Why the group packages its CDs with tacky artwork and silly titles is a mystery, but the music on the disc is much better than appearances suggest. Violinists Victoria Paterson and Christian Hebel, violist Junah Chung, and cellist Robert Burkhart, with flutist Sato Moughalian and trumpeter Eileen Bedlington, turn in remarkably full-sounding renditions that sometimes suggest a small orchestra's heft, and the playing is quite lively and energetic, if not always the most polished or stylistically accurate. This album seems to be most successful if is played as pleasant background music, yet it should not be regarded as authentic Handel -- for that, there are many finer recordings that serve up the music as it was originally written.