As a counterpoise to the work's pomp and opulence, several of the solo numbers - say, Solomon's "What though I trace each herb and flow'r ?", the first harlot's musette-lullaby "Beneath the vine", or Sheba's nostalgic "Will the sun forget to streak?" - are suffused with an almost pantheistic ecstasy (shades here of the Miltonic ode L'Allegro). The love scene between Solomon - here a model of monogamy rather than the incontinent womaniser of biblical fame - and his queen is Handel at his most sensuous, culminating in the ravishing so-called "Nightingale" chorus. While the outer acts are in essence a series of vivid tableaux, Handel the dramatist is to the fore in the judgement scene, a masterpiece of psychological penetration that climaxes in an aria of piercing beauty and emotional truth for the rightful mother. In his pioneering Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (OUP: 1959), Winton Dean advocated the excision of several arias (mainly for the priestly figures of Zadok and the Levite) and the replacement of the closing chorus by the monumental "Praise the Lord" - a policy followed by John Eliot Gardiner (Philips), though not by the compIetist Paul McCreesh (Archiv). In his new recording, Daniel Reuss ditches the final chorus, though he omits just two arias, neither lamented . He also makes puzzling internal cuts in the duet for Solomon and the first harlot, and, more damagingly, the gorgeous opening number of the masque.

That said, I enjoyed the Harmonia Mundi recording almost unreservedly. Abetted by his crack period orchestra and 40-strong chorus, Reuss is responsive alike to the oratorio's ceremonial splendour and its fragrant pastoral tinta. The versions by Gardiner and McCreesh, balanced rather more in favour of the voices, generate an extra weight and sonorous magnificence in the great double choruses. But the vitality and refinement of the Berlin choir is always compelling. With terrific controlled raucousness from antiphonal wind and brass, the opening chorus of Act 2 is as elementally thrilling as it should be. At the other extreme, the Nightingale chorus, taken slowly and secretively, is at least the equal of McCreesh's in drowsy amorous enchantment.

Where the earlier recordings each have at least one unsatisfactory soloist, Reuss's solo line-up could hardly be bettered. Handel cast the role of Solomon with a mezzo-soprano. Reuss does likewise with Sarah Connolly, who sings with glowing, even tone, ardour (in the love scene), and rapt inwardness in Solomon's two "nature" arias. Susan Gritton makes a gently sensuous queen (her musing "With thee th'unshelter'd moor I'd tread" a highlight) and probes the full poignancy and anguish of the first harlot's music. While yielding to Della Jones (Gardiner) and Susan Bickley (McCreesh) in sheer venom, Carolyn Sampson characterises with gusto as the second harlot, and beautifully softens her bright, vernal tone in "Will the sun forget to streak?" The priests are in the expert hands of Mark Padmore (exemplary in his bouts of coloratura) and the gravely sonorous David Wilson-Johnson.