Classic fM has introduced the ‘layman’ to a great deal of accessible art music, often in the form of detached movements; any fear that extension of the process via The Full Works series might involve a measure of ‘dumbing down’ or ‘play pretty for the people’ is dispersed by these and others of the recordings I have heard. The only punch that is pulled here is that modern instruments and pitch are used, but Nicholas McGegan is too wise and experienced to allow that to count for much. Should any listener be persuaded to take the further step of trying and liking fully ‘authentic’ recordings, that would be the icing on very well-baked and tasty cakes.
Anthony Marwood makes his first recorded voyage on baroque waters with distinction, getting just about everything stylistically right, and showing an instinctive flair for embellishment in The Four Seasons. These performances (and that of the comparably programmatic La tempesta di mare), with sprucely pointed and sensitively controlled support, succeed in the difficult task of making these concertos sound fresh. I have nothing but praise for Robin Williams’s oboe playing (with some passages of remarkable ‘snake’s-tongued’ articulation) and Ursula Leveaux’s concealment of the difficulty of meeting Vivaldi’s often near-outrageous demands on bassoon players, past and present. Both put their skills at the service of pure music-making.
Whether or not Handel’s Water Music was composed for one single or three separate occasions and, if the former, in what order the three Suites should be played, remains a matter for debate. McGegan places them in the order usually accepted as appropriate to a single excursion along the Thames – F major on the outward journey, D major on the way back, and the gentler G major during supper – one that is equally effective in a recording. Identifying the movements by their titles provides the usual occupation for a relaxed winter’s evening, but no matter – the music is magnificent in whatever order it is played, and by whatever titles it bears. The flanking Suites are recorded in a more spacious acoustic, as befits the postulated outdoor location of their original performances. The beginning and end of the Music for the Royal Fireworks are ablaze with the brilliant sounds of the trumpets and drums that the King loved. Authentic or not, all these beautifully balanced performances are some of the most enjoyable I have yet heard.'