Who captured this country's pastoral tradition better than Vaughan Williams? There is surely no greater, deeper evocation of our landscape than this 18th-century ode of Handel's. To texts by John Milton, the music spotlights the contrasts between the 'busy hum of men' in the city, and the 'hedge-row elms, on hillocks green' of the countryside, setting up the deeper contrast between cheerfulness and melancholy. Handel's ravishing score, realised to perfection by Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli, evokes these scenes with colourful precision. Gillian Webster's piercingly pensive soprano and Jeremy Ovenden's half-spoken, cheerful tenor effect a moving reconciliation in the sublime duet As Steals The Morn Upon the Night. A glorious recording.