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The repertoire is a mixture of English and Italian language arias from both opera and oratorios, some of which were originally written for castrati. The arias range from the famed Messiah aria “Ev’ry Valley" and “Ombra mai fu" (Serse) to the haunting “Total Eclipse" (Samson). Ian Bostridge commented that even Handel himself would not have minded him “stealing" arias for this album which were not originally written for the tenor voice as octave transposition was a practise commonly used by Handel, for example he re-used the aria “Dopo Notte", originally written by him for castrato voice in Ariodante, as a tenor aria in one of his later operas. Handel has always been an important part of Ian Bostridge’s singing life. The recording partly sprung from his early roots in singing the oratorios and a familiarity with past British singers who made the Handel tenor a cultural fixture. It is his aim to put the spotlight back on the Handel tenor with this album, while he also attempts to represent with the programme Handels “ability to recreate himself while remaining essentially the same". In two arias (“Happy we" and “As steals the morn"), Ian Bostridge is joined by British soprano Kate Royal, who has been signed as an exclusive artist by EMI Classics and is releasing her debut recording on the label later this year. The track “Where’re you walk" is Handel’s most famous tenor aria and its direct melody is easy on the ear. It is from Semele, which Handel wrote as an opera but which in its early productions was staged as an oratorio.