WATER AND FIREWORKS ON SACD

posted by James Reel

Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare of three recent Handel SACDs. It's hardly unknown Handel, but it does provide some relief from Messiah overload:

HANDEL Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks * Jordi Savall, cond; Le Concert des Nations * ALIA VOX 9860 (hybrid multichannel SACD)

HANDEL Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks * Federico Guglielmo, cond; L’Arte dell’Arco * CPO 777 312-2 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 66:05)

Jordi Savall’s sometimes rowdy 1993 Handel recording was issued in conventional stereo on Astrée; now Savall has brought it out on his own label, refurbished as an SACD with subtle rear-channel ambiance. Until recently, some Fanfare critics were in the habit of recommending the Savall disc as a prime choice for brave listeners, just as the intense and sui generis wartime performances of German classics by Wilhelm Furtwängler are recommended only but especially to those not faint of heart. Savall hasn’t been mentioned in recent Fanfare reviews, so here’s an opportunity to call his Handel to your attention again. It’s spectacular work, really, with the individual instrumentalists (especially the horns) playing with abundant character. The slow movements are very warm and lyrical, and the fast movements are exceptionally quick, but lilting. All the minuets in the Water Music, for example, are very fast, but they all swing as well. Savall includes a drum that sounds rather like the tambor that often pops up in Rameau’s ballet music, and the field drum is prominent in the Fireworks Music; now, there’s an exuberant performance truly worthy of a spectacle, with great power and pomp in the Overture and the same characteristics found in the Water Music. The recording is realistic and beautiful, even though it’s pre-DSD technology; engineer Pierre Verany was always one of the best.

The new SACD from Federico Guglielmo’s L’Arte dell’Arco would be fully satisfactory heard in isolation, but pales in comparison to the Savall. The two ensembles are about the same size (by the way, both use strings in the Fireworks), but L’Arte dell’Arco is less full-bodied, and the recorded sound has slightly less presence than Savall’s. The fast movements are chipper, but not as strongly accented and individually phrased as Savall’s. Some of the playing is actually a bit swifter than Savall’s, but the phrasing is less pointed and detailed. On the other hand, the approach to most slow movements is even more lyrical than Savall’s. Guglielmo’s horns are a little less secure, and more distantly situated than Savall’s, but his recorder players are given to some fine ornamental flights of fancy. The Fireworks performance is forceful, but there’s no percussion in the Water Music. (The awkwardly translated booklet notes refer to percussion as “cymbals.”) In effect, Guglielmo’s treatment is the song, and Savall’s is the dance.

By the way, in the Water Music, Savall groups the pieces more or less according to the expected three suites, except that he bunches the horn and trumpet items together. Guglielmo, in contrast, redistributes the horn and trumpet movements among the others, in keeping with the order found in editions going back to the 18th century.

Of these two releases, Savall’s is certainly the more gripping performance and benefits from more immediate sonics. For a less in-your-face but still lively and stylish version of this music, a more fully satisfactory SACD than Guglielmo’s would be Perlman’s on Telarc, which I reviewed in Fanfare 26:6. James Reel

HANDEL Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks * Hervé Niquet, cond; Le Concert Spirituel * GLOSSA GCDSA 921616 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 64:45)

This is a multichannel reissue of a 2002 recording Glossa put on the market in standard two-channel format a few years ago (and was apparently never reviewed in Fanfare). Glossa bills this as “first historical version (original instrumentation and tuning),” but also states that the music was transcribed by conductor Hervé Niquet. The point about tuning is salient, and the performance involves 24 newly-built period-style oboes carefully matched to the meantone temperament of the nine trumpets. Consequently, some passages sound a bit out of tune to our well-tempered ears, but that doesn’t excuse some brass intonation that is simply erratic. The 50-some strings are more reliable, but it seems that they could be balanced with the overabundance of other instruments only by keeping them up front and pushing the woodwinds and brass far to the rear. At least that’s the impression left by the recording. The sheer size of the wind forces generalizes their sound to a burr, and the performance consequently sounds less gutsy than Niquet’s tempos and attacks would otherwise produce. In short, the instrumental definition is remarkably mushy by SACD standards.

It’s an ensemble big enough to sink the river barges on which Handel’s Water Music was first performed, but more relevant to the Royal Fireworks Music (played here with strings as well as big wind band). The Water Music trips along smartly, but lacks the level of interpretive detail offered by Jordi Savall (I reviewed the SACD edition of his marvelous account two issues ago). The Fireworks prelude burns at a very fast pace that actually makes more musical sense—the themes cohere better—than at the old ponderous trudge. Even so, Niquet’s performances lack the aplomb of Savall or the debonair grace of Pearlman, and no number of woody oboes and warbling hunting horns can compensate for that. James Reel