The story of the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, told in the Old Testament Book of Moses, was not only set to music by George Frideric Handel. The works by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Johann Heinrich Rolle (1716-1785) recorded here are based on this subject and partly even on the same libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariae, which was first set to music by Telemann in 1759. Unlike Handel, Zachariae's text is limited to the Israelites' song of praise after salvation, i.e. without the pre-history in Egypt.

Telemann's setting belongs to the composer's astonishing oeuvre of his old age, which focuses on a group of larger oratorio-like compositions written from 1755 onwards.

Following the release of C.P.E. Bach's The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus (PAS1115) and Niccolò Jommelli's Requiem and Miserere (PAS1076), Il Gardellino's recording of Telemann's and Rolle's two oratorios once again presents two works that, despite undeniable qualities, are rarely if ever encountered in concert today.

In the case of Rolle, this is even a long overdue first recording. It is particularly delightful to juxtapose these two works and to experience how two composers, separated by only one generation, realise the theme in a remarkably different way.

Under the equally accomplished and committed direction of Peter Van Heyghen, the vocal ensemble and the baroque orchestra Il Gardellino help these two works to new splendour and the attention they deserve. Not least thanks to the top-class solo roles of Miriam Feuersinger, Elvira Bill, Daniel Johannsen, André Morsch and Sebastian Myrus.