We’re so used to hearing Handel recitals from sopranos or countertenors that one from a tenor is somewhat of a novelty, and we have to go back to Mark Padmore’s terrific 2007 release As Steals the Morn for something comparable. Basses fare even less well, and Bryn Terfel’s Handel Arias is now almost 20-years old. So English tenor Allan Clayton’s recital focusing on songs either written for or sung by the great Handelian tenor John Beard (c.1715-1791), who seems not only to have had a fine voice but acting skills to match, is most welcome.

Beard created some of Handel’s most famous roles, including Samson, of which there are excerpts from not only that version but William Boyce’s; there are also arias from Ariodante, Alcina and Semele, as well as from Judas Maccabaeus, Samson, Jephtha, Alexander’s Feast and more. For As steals the morn from L’Allegro, Clayton is joined by soprano Mary Bevan; for Happy Pair from Alexander’s Feast, the Choir of Classical Opera; the recording opens with Sol nel mezzo risona del core from Il Pastor Fido, in which Bevan duets with James Eastaway’s sweetly plangent oboe.

Of course the orchestral playing under the ever-musical direction of Ian Page is incomparable. But Clayton’s the star here, his tenor by turns suave, tender, stentorian, anguished and more.