"God save the King!" - Handel
Season
2023/2024
Sacred music
"Le Concert Spirituel has made a speciality of interpreting these great musical architectures according to the rules in force in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With this production, we want to perform the music of a royal coronation at Westminster, so that the audience can get an idea of the shock felt by listeners in 18th-century London." Hervé Niquet
Cast
Le Concert Spirituel Choir and Orchestra
Hervé Niquet Musical direction
Programme
Programme (subject to change according to places)
George Frideric Handel
TE DEUM DE DETTINGEN HW 283
Intermission
CORONATION ANTHEMS
Zadok the Priest HW 258
My Hearts is Inditing HW 261
Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened HW 259
The King Shall Rejoice HW 260
Production
Production Le Concert Spirituel
Duration
1h45
with intermission
Photo credit
Le Concert Spirituel
Additional information
Concert in English
The long tradition of musicians attached to princes or kings tends to prove that music was for a long time an essential element in establishing political power.
Handel was no exception to the rule, and both the Coronation Anthems, composed for the coronation of George II, and the Dettingen Te Deum, which celebrates England's victory over the French army at Dettingen in 1743, were intended to reinforce the power of the English crown.
In fact, the two pieces in this concert successfully fulfilled this role, as the rehearsals of the Coronation Anthems attracted an unprecedented number of enthusiastic onlookers. Generating enthusiasm and amazement for the powers that be is what makes music so indispensable to princes. The Coronation Anthems and the Dettingen Te Deum appeal above all to the listener's senses. By playing on energy, they seek to provoke in the audience a physical, unanimous and enthusiastic support that they could not obtain by addressing the intellect alone.
It is his own vision of these "grand spectacle" pieces that the founder of Le Concert Spirituel, backed by his expertise in the Haendelian repertoire (his interpretation of Water Music & Music for the Royal Fireworks won the Edison Award, and is regularly performed before thousands of spectators internationally, while his Messiah, just released by Alpha, was voted "BBC Radio 3's Record Review of the Week") now wishes to offer. Le Concert Spirituel choir and orchestra promise an enthralling evening, beginning with spectacular marches for drums a
This programme has been recorded and is available on Alpha Classics / Outhere music under the title Coronation Anthems more info here
Dates
