Handel: Water Music (CD review)

Also, trumpet concertos of Handel, Torelli, and Vivaldi. Roger Delmotte and Arthur Haneuse, trumpets; Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Westminster 471 276-2.

This was another of Universal's reissues of a decade or so ago, taken from the old Westminster label. It features Handel's Water Music recorded by Hermann Scherchen and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra in 1961. It is a decidedly and wonderfully old-fashioned interpretation by today's standards, yet it's one a person might not want to miss.

In the booklet notes we find a quote from the conductor regarding the then-emerging move toward "authentic" performing practice: "All that can be said here is that historical fidelity for fidelity's sake would be absurd, given our large concert halls and the vast audiences that fill them; the modern concert hall demands the piano, just as it demands today's more powerful strings." Apparently, Maestro Scherchen had little regard for small ensembles playing Baroque music on period instruments. Instead, he offers a large-scale performance playing in a most Romantic tradition, some of which can be downright disconcerting to folks who have grown up with period-performance practices.

Hermann Scherchen

Scherchen takes the "Overture" and "Alla Hornpipe," for instance, at ooooh soooooo sloooow a pace, and with such a mass of strings you may hardly recognize things. Still, taken purely as music, without counting prejudices one way or the other about what music it is and how one should play it, this set of Water Music holds its own. Scherchen presents it beautifully, the orchestra performs it eloquently, and the whole set of movements appears uniformly well integrated. Once you listen to it all the way through, today's newer, leaner, quicker-paced readings may seem less musical to you.

Performers today most commonly divide the Water Music into suites according to key signatures, but as there is no documented proof as to how folks originally played the various movements, Scherchen has chosen to offer them in a single, extended suite. It works just fine, as does the early stereo sound. Unlike a previous release I reviewed from this source (of Liszt), which Westminster recorded several years earlier than the Water Music and sounded noisy, this issue is dead quiet. Fortunately, too, like the Liszt, the orchestral spread is wide and deep, the sonics rich, full, and smooth, and the natural balance remarkable.

Indeed, the audiophile listener may find interest in this disc for its audio reproduction alone, with the older performance style coming as an added attraction. As the Water Music also comes coupled with several very brief trumpet concertos by Handel (Concerto in D major), Torelli (Sinfonia for trumpet, strings & continuo in D major), and Vivaldi (Trumpet Concerto for 2 trumpets, strings & continuo in C major), I can only recommend the package; certainly not as a first choice in this repertoire, but as an alternative view at least.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here: