Handel's “Twelve Grand Concertos” were composed in autumn 1739 and published by John Walsh the following April. It was arguably conceived as a set with a dual function: to provide repertoire for adorning Handel's oratorio concerts with additional concertos, but it also gave the composer scope to demonstrate that he could match the likes of Corelli and Vivaldi at manipulating the possibilities offered by the simple resources of strings (including a concertino soloist group) and continuo throughout a large-scale publication.

Although one can speculate that Handel might have conceived the Op 6 Concerti grossi as a carefully plotted complete set, he certainly never performed them that way, and they have rarely appeared so on disc. Most projects to record Handel's finest orchestral compositions tend to be divided into separate volumes, and Boston Baroque here complete their slow-burning project to record all 12 concertos with strongly articulate and brightly resonant performances of Nos 7-12.

Perhaps these interpretations lack a little of the exuberant sparkle in the benchmark version by Andrew Manze's Academy of Ancient Music (Harmonia Mundi), and they seldom match the superb expressive rhetoric of Trevor Pinnock's English Concert (Archiv, 3/88R). But there is a paucity of new recordings of Handel's Op 6 compared to the steady stream of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, so this disc is most welcome, and there is something positive to be said for a slightly more measured and literal approach that certainly never lets Handel down. The finest versions already available all feature directors leading from their instruments (violinists Manze and Simon Standage, or harpsichordists Pinnock and Christopher Hogwood, all in the thick of things), but conductor Martin Pearlman provides some well written booklet-notes and supervises assured performances that do his Bostonian orchestra credit.