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Two albums of anthems written for the coronations of English kings, recorded in late 2022 for release on April 28, 2023? What can be going on? Ah, but of course! These are friendly gifts from abroad to mark the UK’s big day, and gladly received they should be, too. There’s no doubting where these two conductors see the historical centre of gravity lying as far as coronation music goes. While Charles III’s coronation looks like being the most musically diverse ever, in the days of the Stuarts and Hanoverians they stuck more closely to what they were used to. Thus we get royal music from just three composers over these two releases: Purcell, Handel and William Croft.
The Croft comes in his anthem The Lord is a sun and a shield, written for the coronation of George I in 1714, which appears on the album by the RIASKammerchor Berlin under their English conductor Justin Doyle with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. A carefully written piece for choir, strings and trumpets, it represents, as well as anything might, a middle-point between Purcell’s harmonic richness and flowing English word-setting, and Handel’s crowd-pleasing power and regal grandeur, while yet having a dignified presence of its own. It is included in a programme that opens with the aristocratic Overture from Handel’s Occasional Oratorio of 1746 (itself a bombastic celebration of monarchic survival following the ending of the Jacobite Rebellion), goes on to present an enjoyable and lively Chaconne for strings by John Blow, and climaxes in Handel’s four great anthems for the 1727 coronation of George II. Doyle’s manner has the stylistic confidence of the English choral tradition behind it. When put together with the customary excellence of the AAMB and a good amount of sensitive detail, there is not much more needed: the solemnity of ‘Let justice and judgment be the preparation of thy seat’ in Let thy hand be strengthened and a more than usually vigorous ‘Thou hast prevented him’ in
The King shall rejoice are particularly well judged. But while any wearying sense of bombast is rightly averted, especially in the lightly joyful touch shown in the final sections of Zadok the Priest and My heart is inditing, there are times when the energy flags. The choir is recorded a little distantly, too, further contributing to the feeling of coolness in places.
This is not a criticism that can be levelled at Gaétan Jarry’s jubilant offering with the Orchestra and Choir of the Opéra Royal. With similar-sized forces to Doyle’s, they make a tremendous noise – Zadok is absolutely thunderous, its drumbeats sounding like cannons going off outside somewhere, and Handel’s My heart is inditing (lit by glittering bursts from the grand organ) has an urgency few will have heard in it before. Not surprisingly in the Westminster Abbey-like acoustic of the Versailles Royal Chapel, a fair amount of detail is lost, but the emphasis in the choral singing here is in any case on long, smoothly shaped phrases and long-term ebb and flow, which can be quite involving, even if fugues (eg ‘Thou hast prevented him’) get rather mushy.
The programming pays a lightly atmospheric tribute to George II’s coronation, inserting trumpet fanfares here and there, some appropriate vocal acclamations, and two Purcell anthems – I was glad and My heart is inditing – that were originally written for James II’s coronation in 1685 but were revived in 1727. These, alas, are less fun: I was glad lacks spring in the opening section and remains dull and blunt-edged thereafter, while My heart is inditing is simply too fast and hectoring (even in the contemplative ‘Hearken, O daughter’ section), adds the distinctly French sound of recorders to the strings, and is anything but stately. The programme ends with a chorus of praise from Handel’s Solomon, and why not? This may not be a subtle thing, but if a joyful clamour in a large building is what you want, well here it is. |
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