• Among the gloriously diverse music at the recent royal wedding, the traditional ceremonial music of Handel still featured with a new twist, at the heart-stopping moment when “Eternal source of light divine” rang out at the entry of the (solo) bride. There’s something unique about Handel’s elemental ability to conjure up this magic: a new disc of his Concerti a due cori by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Harmonia Mundi) bursts with life and reanimates these neglected works.
Because these three concertos re-use movements from Handel’s choral music, they have been sometimes regarded with disdain, but the sheer fun of hearing “Lift up your heads” from Messiah, or movements from Esther and Partenope in this new guise for two antiphonal orchestral groups is exhilarating. Freiburg’s perky period wind and rasping horns are vivid, while the pounding ground bass from the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne supports endlessly uplifting variations.
• Curious, rare Mozart on two new recordings: the first an ambitious and fascinating two-disc collection, Mozart in London (Signum), setting the composer’s early visit to London in 1764-5 in the context of the music of the time by Arne, JC Bach and others. There’s some striking music by the Neapolitan Davide Perez, and some cheerful songs by Egidio Duni and Samuel Arnold, all enterprisingly performed by the Mozartists under Ian Page; the collection is framed by Mozart’s earliest symphonies, sparklingly played, even if the first wasn’t definitely written in London, and the last one here is now known to be by Abel.
Even more unusual on Ensemble DeNote’s Mozart: Chamber Music Volume 2 is the 1805 arrangement by one CFG Schwencke of the great Gran Partita for 13 winds reduced to a mere five players. It works surprisingly well, with John Irving’s fortepiano rippling like the missing woodwind in the famous Adagio. Solo clarinet and violin share the limelight, and the elaborations are stylish.
• To accompany a walk in the country, you could not do better than an edition of Radio 3’s ever-inventive Between the Ears, The Sheep of Art, exploring their habits and portrayal from Andalucian shepherds to Henry Moore and Zurbarán. Pastoral expert Alexandra Harris follows the flocks and their chiming bells.
