James II and Mary of Modena were crowned at Westminster Abbey on April 23, 1685. It was a magnificent occasion described in print by the observer Francis Sandford. Alas, both James and Sandford’s lavishly prepared book were ill-fated: Sandford lost his shirt on producing an expensive engraved publication full of illustrations and descriptions devoted to a monarch who was openly Catholic, and who was supplanted by the resolutely Protestant combination of Mary and William of Orange only four years later. However, thanks to Sandford, we have a reasonable idea about how to reconstruct the musical offerings, which included several splendid anthems by Blow and Purcell.

Andrew Gant has not recreated the splendid musical forces employed in 1685, like Simon Preston did for a similar programme (Archiv – nla), but instead uses the music to showcase his modern-day Chapel Royal Choir, recorded in its home at St James’s Palace. There is a pleasing sense of historical continuity evident here. The current-day ad hoc guests are described as “Musicians Extra-Ordinary” just as they have been since the 15th century. The alto solos are provided by James Bowman, himself something of a fine English institution. Andrew Tortise impresses in the declamatory tenor solo that opens Purcell’s I was glad (Gant argues that the verse anthem version with strings is a more likely choice for the 1685 service than the florid five-part full anthem). The shaded interplay between the small group of instruments and polished singers produces fine performances of Blow’s God spake sometime in visions and Purcell’s My heart is inditing. It is fascinating to hear Henry Lawes’s Zadok the Priest, originally composed for the coronation of Charles II in 1661 but revived in 1685, and no doubt the precedent for Handel’s famously opulent setting for George II in 1727.