HANDEL Water Music. Alexander's Feast
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: George Frideric Handel
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Accent
Magazine Review Date: 07/2017
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 63
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ACC26407
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Water Music |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
George Frideric Handel, Composer Göttingen Festival Orchestra Laurence Cummings, Conductor |
Concerto grosso, 'Alexander's Feast' |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
George Frideric Handel, Composer Göttingen Festival Orchestra Laurence Cummings, Conductor |
Author: Charlotte Gardner
So finally here they are centre stage, recorded at their 10th-anniversary concert last year in Göttingen’s Stadthalle, and as for what they bring to Handel’s much-recorded Water Music, to all the qualities listed above add lively tempos and a particularly rhythmic, dancelike feel. Highlights would be the organicism with which the flutes’ gentle phrases emerge from and build on each other throughout the Sarabande. Another would be the exuberant and gorgeously shaped brass opening to the Allegro preceding the Alla Hornpipe, which then concludes with a transitional passage of exquisitely crisp and delicate string-playing. More generally there’s the gloriously perky woodwind, Cummings’s merry harpsichord, and indeed an overall joie de vivre that builds to such a climax for the final Menuet that it’s impossible not to actually smile.
These are readings which would verily sing through the open air as Handel intended, and incidentally they may also be particularly close to what Handel first wrote, because Cummings has used the new Hallische Händel-Ausgabe edition, which is based on the source thought to be the work’s oldest. The concerto grosso from Alexander’s Feast that rounds off the programme is equally top-notch, with some beautifully supple concertino playing.
I don’t say this lightly, but however many recordings of Handel’s Water Music you already own, this one is worth expanding your collection for.
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