Handel Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks B’Rock Orchestra/Dmitry Sinkovsky Pentatone PTC 5187 013 64:50 mins
The recording studio has transformed Handel’s three Water Music suites from profane celebrations of monarchy into iconic staples of the Baroque. Similarly, his Music for the Royal Fireworks has acquired a canonical status. The many existing couplings of these landmark works raise our expectations for new releases.
Ghent-based B’rock Orchestra encapsulate 21st-century historical performance: a catchy name, slick interpretations and social conscience. In the wake of other ensembles like L’Arte dell’Arco (CPO, 2008), B’rock displays similarly high technical achievement, with pleasing ornamental departures from the score. Their album opens with the second Water Music suite, connecting the first two tracks by interpolations from harpsichordist Alexander von Heissen. (Contrasting trumpet and horn timbres would be more exciting had players of the former risen to Jean-François Madeuf’s challenge to use instruments without unhistorical finger holes.)
Delightful recorder playing in the ‘Menuet’ and ‘Sicilienne’ is probably the work of an oboist, although uncredited in the note. The poise of the final Allegro of the Water Music suite No. 1 owes much to the stylish playing of concert-master Boris Begelman. Timbrally innovative, captivating percussion in the Water Music (Suite No 2’s Rigaudons) and ‘La Rejouissance’ from the Royal Fireworks reminds us of the importance of the dance.
Tutti textures, especially in the Fireworks, intensify the album’s prioritisation of orchestral over chamber sonorities. B’rock claim to be ‘one of today’s most successful and forward-thinking period orchestras’ but surely this repertoire doesn’t actually need conducting?
Ingrid Pearson