This release of Handel’s Chandos Anthems (spelt here as ‘Haendel’, as if to emphasise what Laurent Brunner calls the composer’s ‘remarkable synthesis of the musical traditions of Germany, Italy, France and England’ in his lively booklet note) is a good example of this. 

Inégal is everywhere, and its looseness is luxurious. Take the third movement of the first anthem, O be joyful in the Lord, HWV246, the singer’s entrance after the instrumental Adagio and Allegro movements. Tenor Nicholas Scott is gloriously limber, and then, in counterpoint with oboist Neven Lesage, wrapped in a cycle of fifths, it’s like two lovers in improvisational sway.

The basso continuo, with the faintest buzz of bassoon, neatly chomps away beneath, and then the chorus emerge as incorporeal radiance (a tactic replicated in the fourth anthem). It’s truly delightful music-making, and conductor Gaétan Jarry does an excellent job in balancing all these different elements.

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Gramophone - Octobre 2022, Mark Seow,