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Handel Water Music, HWV348-50. English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner.
Philips (Full price) (CD) 434 122-2PH (53 minutes: DDD).

Gardiner presents the three suites in what seems to be their logical order (F, G, D), corresponding to the sequence of events on the night, discounting the unlikely order in which Walsh published them. Did the king step ashore to the gentle strains of the undesignated 'final' movement of the F major Suite? If no, then what? The Consort of London (Collins, 6/90) add the two movements of the Concerto in F major of c. 1715 which, transposed, later became part of the G major Suite; Gardiner uses them to frame the F major Suite, placing the livelier Alla hornpipe at the end. The "3 fois" in the undesignated 3/8 movement has been variously interpreted; in the first two sections Gardiner includes the horns (and their unaccompanied pendant phrases) only in the repeats. Was a harpsichord water-borne? It seems unlikely, and thus fitting that it should become audible only in the dinner-music G major Suite.

Gardiner does not add to existing confusion by giving names to undesignated movements, but here the final "This Air to be played 3 times over" becomes a Bourree. No matter though, it ends the proceedings in a blaze of glory. This is as 'festive' a performance as I have heard, with well-chosen tempos, alert rhythms, fine style, tasteful and thoughtfully placed embellishment, and topped in the outer suites with incisive brass—bright, sharp-edged but never coarse. The recording is whistle-clean and meticulously balanced, and the 'outdoor' suites sound appropriately spacious. This will be a hard act to follow.
JD