Handel: Coronation Anthem No. 1, HWV258 'Zadok the Priest'

The potential of music as a means of adding dignity and grandeur to state occasions has surely been lost on a few rulers in history. Portraits of antique kings and queens are more often admired (or the reverse) for their artistic qualities, as opposed to the enhancement in the status of their subjects they were originally intended to confer. Similarly, the appeal of ceremonial music from former ages is for modern listeners primarily aesthetic.

This 75-minute collection brings together music heard at a staggering variety of British royal occasions. Zadok the Priest has been included in every coronation service held in that building ever since the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline in Westminster Abbey on 11 October 1727. There is music for the coronation of King James II in 1685 (Purcell’s I was glad), and a later setting of the same verses by Parry for the coronation of Edward VII in Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902.

Of course, there’s music for Queen Elizabeth II – Walton’s Coronation Te Deum and Orb and Sceptre for the coronation on 2 June 1953 and Bliss’s march Welcome the Queen, which commemorated the return of the monarch from her Commonwealth tour in 1954.

The British national anthem hardly needs an introduction. Benjamin Britten’s distinctive arrangement was first performed in Leeds on 7 October 1961 and has been heard countless times since.

A collection of music by great British composers, including Elgar - Land of Hope and Glory, Enigma Variations; Holst – The Planets; Walton – Crown Imperial; Orb & Sceptre and Parry – Jerusalem. Full of highly recognisable themes, this album captures and celebrates the great British spirit.

Released in time for the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Katherine Middleton, which takes place on the 29th April 2011. With street parties up and down the isle and a national bank holiday, the biggest Royal event since the Marriage of Prince Charles to Princess Diana is set to be celebrated in style.

Some of the most celebrated recordings from Harry Christophers and his award-winning ensemble. Equally appealing to fans of The Sixteen and those who are new to the group, this disc provides a definitive collection of familiar classics and lesser-known treasures.

There is surely no more quintessentially English sound than that of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, its unaccompanied voices – evocative of immemorial sandstone, of cool cloisters, of evensong in church, chapel and cathedral – serene in the music of Shakespeare’s contemporaries Byrd and Gibbons, ethereal in Delius heard of a summer’s night across the Backs of the River Cam.

No less iconic is the chapel that lends its unique acoustic to that sound. One of the glories of the English perpendicular style of architecture, it was eventually completed in 1547, a little over a century after the founding of the college itself by Henry VI.

This collection opens and closes with coronation music: Zadok the Priest was written for the crowning of George II in 1727, I was glad for that of Edward VII in 1902. Both were so successful that they have been sung at every coronation since their premières. Parry’s ‘processional anthem’ is heard here in its full panoply of extra brass and shouted Vivats, the choir of King’s choir providing the semi-chorus in the exquisite interlude ‘O pray for the peace of Jerusalem’.

In between are motets ancient and modern – from the miniature If ye love me and the architectural splendour of the 40-part Spem in alium to William Harris’s dramatic double-choir Spenser setting Faire is the Heaven; well-known psalms sung to Anglican chant; and favourite hymns, notably All people that on earth do dwell, arranged ceremonially for another coronation, that of Elizabeth II.

As well as national rejoicing there is solemn remembrance. Come ye sons of art away is Purcell’s 1694 birthday ode for Queen Mary, Thou knowest, Lord part of the music he wrote for her funeral just nine months later. John Ireland’s Greater love hath no man is often heard on Remembrance Sunday; Sir John Tavener’s Song for Athene made a powerful impression at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales; while John Rutter’s small-scale, personal Requiem touched a wider public following the attacks of 11 September 2001. But ‘Nimrod’ above all epitomises music of national remembrance. Here a choral setting of it, Lux aeterna, represents our ‘Shakespeare of music’, Edward Elgar.

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen add a brand new recording of Handel’s Coronation Anthems to their stunning catalogue of Handel discs.

In one of his last undertakings before his death in 1727, King George I signed an ‘Act for the naturalising of George Frideric Handel’ amongst others. One of Handel’s first tasks as a naturalised British Citizen was to write the music for the Coronation of the new monarch - King George II which was to take place later that year. Rarely did a composer of the day have such an audience for his new works and Handel’s four Anthems were written to match the pomp and grandeur of the occasion and, of course, the venue – Westminster Abbey. The Coronation Anthems have delighted audiences ever since and appear in all their glory on this recording interspersed with a selection of Handel favourites including Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Handel’s Organ Concerto in F Major Op. 4 No. 4 and two extracts from Messiah.

'They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace...' and this is what they might play: a superb mix of marching tunes and popular songs, played here by a mighty tour de force of virtuoso bandsmen chosen from amongst the best bands from Her Majesty's Armed Forces.