Robert King - Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks, Four Coronation Anthems (1989)

Handel at his most jubilant here, hymning the glories of Georgian England in his half-official role as composer laureate: the four anthems written for George II's coronation in 1727 and the Music for the Royal Fireworks that celebrated his victories more than 20 years later. Robert King directs very capable performances using period instruments and, correctly, male voices. He does not use soloists; the requirement is ambiguous here and there is, I think, some justification for supposing that in Westminster Abbey Handel would have used choral forces or at least doubling (as indicated in the first movement of My heart is inditing) for the possible solo passages. King gives a spacious, exciting account of Zadok the priest, with the brass instruments unusually prominent in the tuttis. One or two 'refinements' of dynamics in the final section create, to my mind, a slight loss of energy in the last chorus, but the effect as a whole is good. I particularly enjoyed The King shall rejoice, the opening movement of which is done with great spirit, and the closing ''Alleluja'' goes with a swing too. I felt in some of the choruses, however, that the choral sound seemed a shade gluey, over-legato and needing more airiness, and the effect sometimes becomes a shade oppressive this happens most perhaps in My heart but also in Let thy hand be strengthened (where the contrast in tempo between the last two choruses struck me as too marked). Still, highly acceptable performances, though I would not recommend a change to anyone who has the excellent Preston/Archiv Produktion disc cited above, which should be reckoned the most stylish and musicianly version available.
King has the advantage, however, of including a substantial extra item, the Music for the Royal Fireworks in what is claimed as the ''First ever recording on period instruments of the original 1749 scoring''—no doubt correctly, for it is pretty difficult to get together 24 period oboes, 12 period bassoons and nine each of period horns and trumpets—though many readers will, I am sure, remember the historic Mackerras Pye mono LP recording, of course with modern instruments issued first, 30 years ago in June 1959. Yet authentidty is perhaps a chimera here: we know very well that Handel, although required to produce a piece for ''warlike instruments'' (i.e. wind and percussion) bridled, and demanded to be allowed to use ''violeens'' too—and if the count of a contemporary news reporter isn't exaggerated, he probably had his way, for the band numbered 100 rather than the 60 or so that the 'warlike instruments' alone would have accounted for. And certainly Handel's later versions were always for strings and wind.
On listening to this recording, I have to say that I can see why Handel wanted strings. The wind-band sound is certainly imposing and stirring in its way but there is a rather uncouth, hectic quality to it, no doubt something to do with intonation en masse. Well, I don't want to put anyone off the chance to sample the kind of sound that may have been on offer in London's Green Park that damp April evening in 1749. I do not much enjoy the swells King draws from his band in some of the dialogue passages in the slow part of the Overture nor the added trumpet flourish at its end- and ''La paix'' seems a bit lifeless and heavy—one regrets here King's generosity over repeats. Still, the experiment was well worth trying, and obviously a lot of people had a lot of fun.