Handel 12 [Concerto] Concerti [grosso] grossi, Op. 6. Academy of Ancient Music / Andrew Manze (vn).

Harmonia Mundi (Full price) (CD) HMU90 7228/9 (two discs: 157 minutes: DDD).

With one stride, Harmonia Mundi have stolen a march on Chandos Chaconne’s rival set of Handel’s Op. 6, the final disc of which by Simon Standage’s Collegium Musicum 90 will be reviewed next month; and by juggling with the order (which in any case was not that in which the works were written) the 12 concertos have been accommodated on only two CDs (running to the unusual lengths of 79'27" and 77'46"). Playing in St John’s, Smith Square, from facsimiles of the original parts, the AAM are on sparkling form, clearly enjoying themselves under Andrew Manze’s leadership; it is good news that he is to front the group for all HM’s Antient Musick series. Unlike Standage, he does not include the oboe parts that were later added to a few of the concertos. In one detail he appears to contradict himself when he says that because the bass-line was unfigured, no separate continuo instrument seems to have been intended and that eighteenth-century cellists often expanded their part by means of arpeggios and the like: yet there is little sign of this, and in fact a harpsichord and archlute make effective contributions to the ensemble.

Performances are invigoratingly alert, splendidly neat (all those semiquaver figurations absolutely precise) and strongly rhythmical but not inflexible, with much dynamic gradation which ensures that phrases are always tonally alive and sound completely natural (even if more subtly nuanced than Handel’s players ever dreamt of). Manze’s basically light-footed approach is particularly appealing (though he can be almost aggressively firm on occasion, as in the marcatos in the Largo of No. 2 and the Grave of No. 8), and he sees to it that inner-part imitations are given due weight. Notable is his care over phrasing – observe the spacing in the openings of Nos. 2 and 3 and his recoveries after the shock surprise chords of No. 8. Speeds are nearly all fast, occasionally questionably so (though exhilarating), as in the first Allegro of No. 1, the big Allegro of No. 6 and the Allegro in No. 9 derived from an organ concerto. But Manze successfully brings out the character of all the movements, and I love the vigorous kick of his No. 7 hornpipe. He is mostly sparing in embellishing solo lines except in Nos. 6 and 11, but I wondered why he smoothes out the Lombard rhythms in No. 6’s Larghetto so that they become merely a mild inegalite. Anyway, altogether this is an issue of joyous vitality, to which I am sure I shall be returning with pleasure.

LS