The Royal Philharmonic are the first UK orchestra to promote their own records rather than getting outside sponsorship, and one wishes their enterprise well. Certainly they are on very lively form on this first offering, giving us crisp and admirable playing of Handel under their President, Sir Yehudi Menuhin (celebrating his 70th birthday this year), in a vivid recording from ASV.
The Ouverture of the Fireworks Music establishes at once the stylish playing and it continues throughout the following pieces. Those who want Handel played as certain scholars think Handel himself might have heard it (for who is to know for sure?) would be advised to go to these popular suites recorded by specialist groups using old instruments; but for those who are happy with modern instruments played in the modern style but otherwise observing the established conventions of baroque style, Menuhin's is a happy compromise. The Fireworks Music is played with plenty of woodwind and brass well to the fore and recorded to give a similar sound.
The Water Music suite as played here presents a slight problem to the listener who has a reliable score of the three suites (I have Barenreiter's edition), for Anthony Baines's edition offers 11 numbers from all three and that makes this suite difficult to follow since the order is quite different. I understand from the very informative note that Baines has based his score on a manuscript believed to be in the hand of J. C. Smith (a pupil of Handel who later played the keyboard continuo in many performances of his music) who wrote it out with Handel's authority; and Baines claims that these pieces have been given their original instrumentation and are in their approximate order.
In between these two familiar suites of Handel is another one arranged by Sir Thomas Beecham (The RPO's founder) which he called Amaryllis, a delightful series of instrumental pieces drawn from dances and the like from three operas. Beecham's arrangements may be anachronistic to some extent (the orchestra includes clarinets and a triangle) but they all show his love for the composer and are played here with equal love under Menuhin. It is only those who forget what we owe to Beecham for drawing our attention to this music, then quite unknown, who will object to this charming suite.'