Dame Janet Baker

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, a son of a barber-surgeon of some distinction who was 63 when Handel was born. His aptitude for music presented itself early and he was soon performing to the royalty and aristocracy. At 18 he moved to Hamburg but his real chance to develop his musical talents came when he moved to Rome in 1706. His Dixit Dominus – a setting of Psalm 109 – is now thought to have been written for the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel the following year. It shows how well Handel, a German Protestant, had been accepted by his hosts that the Cardinal should commission him to provide music for such a Catholic occasion. Ten years later Handel was in England and the provision of the Water Music for an excursion by barge on the Thames so delighted the new King George I (previously Elector of Hannover) that he duly forgave the composer for his behaviour whilst in his service in Germany.

In 1727 Handel provided four anthems for the Coronation of King George II of which one, Zadok the Priest, has been performed at every subsequent Coronation. The final work in this set is the Music for the Royal Fireworks written to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749.

Johann Sebastian Bach performed his Christmas Oratorio during the festive season 1734/5 in Leipzig. It does not conform to the usual meaning of the word Oratorio in that it is not a single self-contained work but is split into six sections or cantatas for six different services between Christmas Day and Epiphany, indeed the soloists and instrumentalists employed are varied thus enforcing the view that Bach did not expect all six to be performed in one evening concert. There is the usual blend of choruses and chorales for the choir with arias and recitatives for the soloists with the Tenor also allocated the role of Evangelist.

This recording, featuring the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, together with soloists closely associated with the works of the composer and of international renown, took place in July and December 1976 in King’s College Chapel with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under the direction of the Sir Philip Ledger, the then College musical director

The works of William Shakespeare have inspired numerous composers but the effect on Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was deep and life-long – he even married the actress, Harriet Smithson, whose performances as Ophelia (Hamlet) and then, with even greater impact, as Juliet, had kindled this passion. Berlioz did not, like his later compatriot, Gounod, create an opera but what he described as a “Dramatic Symphony” – the play’s central love scene has no voices it is left to the orchestra to give a emotionally highly charged description.

Of the three soloists it is only the bass soloist who is given a specific role in the work, that of Friar Laurence; the other two merely describe the feelings of the two lovers. With a chorus adding considerable colour he created a work which had commentators like Dumas ecstatic in their enthusiasm for it. Riccardo Muti with his Philadelphia Orchestra and soloists – Jessye Norman, John Aler and Simon Estes clearly revel in the remarkable orchestration and colour that the composer demands. Berlioz, however, was not exclusively dramatic or spectacular in his compositions as the beautiful selection of songs Les Nuits d’été show. Originally written with piano accompaniment in 1840/1 he orchestrated them fifteen years later. They explore different aspects of romantic love they are as beautiful as anything he wrote. The classic recording with Dame Janet Baker and Sir John Barbirolli complete this valuable set.

By the time he recorded the Requiem in the glowing acoustic of All Saints’, Tooting, the 28-eight-year-old Barenboim was already a seasoned Mozart conductor. He had completed an acclaimed series of the later symphonies, and was midway through the complete piano concertos, which he directed from the keyboard. All these recordings were with the ECO.

As Richard Wigmore’s informative note goes on to observe, ‘in those days big-band Mozart, à la Karajan and Böhm, was still the norm. Barenboim’s recordings of the symphonies uniquely combined a chamber scale with a subjective flexibility, founded on a deep analytical understanding of harmonic structure, that reflects his oft-expressed reverence for Wilhelm Furtwängler.

This 1971 Mozart Requiem is essentially in the same vein: expansive, pliable, lovingly moulded, ferociously dramatic in movements like the Dies irae and Confutatis, concerned everywhere to stress the music’s proleptic tendencies over its Baroque roots.’

Above all, the professional incisiveness of the 50-strong John Alldis Choir came as a revelation to many. As Alan Blyth put it in Gramophone, the choir, ‘wholly responsive to the extremes of dynamics required of them, is also capable of finely disciplined attack’. He noted, too, the ‘unrepeatably distinguished team of soloists’.

This 1969 New Philharmonia recording of Anton Bruckner’s massive C major Te Deum (originally coupled with Bach’s Magnificat) was Barenboim’s first foray into the music of a composer he would often conduct with distinction, not least in his 1970s symphony series with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Again, both works are newly transferred and remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios.