HANDEL Water Music Suites
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Label: Glossa
Magazine Review Date:
Media Format: Hybrid SACD
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: GCDSA921616
Author: Richard Wigmore
From the delightfully sprightly Allegro of the Overture, the Berlin period band give a predictably enjoyable, accomplished performance: polished, rhythmically spirited and supple, imaginative in ornamentation (the oboe embellishments in the Adagio e staccato a model of taste and expressiveness) and choice of instrumentation in repeats. Some of the tempi might initially seem disconcertingly fast, though I came to relish the exuberant, springy Hornpipe, complete with added timpani, and the zesty – and quite undanceable – final Menuet. Of Versailles or Georgian pomp there is ne’er a trace. There is delicacy, and a care for the singing line, in the famous Air (its dynamics aptly varied) and the G major minuets with flute and sopranino recorder. Throughout, balancing of the various instrumental groups seems spot-on, not least in the F major allegros where the thrillingly brazen horns are ballasted by a rasping, gurgling contrabassoon.
For colour, vigour and spontaneous-sounding delight in Handel’s inventiveness, the Berliners are up there with Gardiner, who puts more stress on the vein of English sturdiness, Kevin Mallon and the Aradia Ensemble and the large-scale, high-adrenalin Hervé Niquet, whose horns and trumpets, playing in ‘natural’ intonation, outdo all comers in sheer raucousness. But – and for me it’s a big but – Harmonia Mundi offers only the Water Music, whereas all the other recordings pair it, logically, with the Fireworks. Optimistic or plain mean?
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