Handel: Coronation Anthems

Handel, who did so much to reinforce British identity at a crucial period in the nation’s history, was a German who spent many of his best years writing Italian opera. The composer’s international outlook inevitably left its mark on his music, a point explored over the past 40 years by Hervé Niquet as both singer and, since 1987, founder/conductor of Le Concert Spirituel. Anyone familiar with Handel’s four Coronation Anthems, especially the first of the set, Zadok the Priest, should prepare for provocations and thrills galore in Niquet’s gripping interpretations, which add touches of Versailles splendour to music written for George II, a German-born English king not known for extravagance. Zadok’s orchestral introduction, hallmarked here by arresting dynamic shadings, motors along under Niquet’s direction. It flows seamlessly into the choir’s first entry, more regal pronouncement than sudden shout, which in turn prepares the way for an impassioned choral delivery of “God save the king” and the rapid-fire “Alleluias” that follow it. Niquet vehemently denies that he has an “approach” to Zadok and its companion pieces. “I observe what a coronation is,” he notes. “It says that when Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint Solomon, he is King. It’s not about making musical firecrackers! It’s about the violence and suddenness of the change from a simple man to suddenly becoming God’s representative on earth. Handel describes this in an astonishing way by bringing in 10 trumpets and a huge choir. Their purpose is to make the world tremble and other nations hear that we now have a king, and that it is better for your own sake to keep away from any evil intentions towards us. It’s called a deterrent!” Le Concert Spirituel displays the wealth of Handel’s orchestral writing in just about every measure of the Coronation Anthems and in the equally vital Te Deum, written for the thanksgiving service held to honour George II’s victory over the French at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. The choir and orchestra, almost exclusively populated by French musicians, catch the pride and fervour pumped by Handel into music composed for two royal occasions. “Given the reductive parameters set for the composer for both occasions, one might expect a well-crafted, effective but blinged-out work without much depth,” says Niquet. “In reality, Handel understood that the whole nation was ‘on fire’ for these two events: a coronation and a victory. He intensified the feelings of the British people on these occasions with brilliant writing. All the members of Le Concert Spirituel, knowing the historical context but unaware of the visceral impact of a king’s coronation on the British people, felt as if they had a volcano in their hands that was beyond them. Harmony and rigour helped us deal with these torrents of lava and fire.”