Arcangelo perform Handel's Chandos Anthems at the Théâtre Elisabéthain at Château d'Hardelot as part of the 2023 Midsummer Festival. Image (c) Pascal Brunet
First published 1 July 2025
Arcangelo is proud to announce the release of its 31st studio album, featuring the first new British recordings in over a decade of four of Handel's 'Anthems for Cannons' or 'Chandos Anthems'.
Dating from the early years of Handel's English residency, the Anthems for Cannons were written for the private chapel of James Brydges, a wealthy landowner and politician who poured his vast private fortune into the creation of a magnificent palace and gardens at Canons Park in Middlesex.
Arcangelo's new recording of four of these anthems offers a 'chamber' presentation in keeping with the known size of Brydges' household musical establisment and performance space - initially the nearby church of St Lawrence Stanmore while the palace chapel was completed. This approach is in marked contrast to an evolved view of the Chandos Anthems shaped by Handel's subsequent Coronation Anthems and oratorios, and reveals the 'early English Handel' to be a musician still predominantly characterised by his formative period in Italy.
Released on Alpha Classics, the recording features singers Hilary Cronin, Deborah Cachet (Soprano), Daniel Collins (Alto), Sam Boden, Hugo Hymas, Matthew Long (Tenor), Raoul Steffani (Baritone) and William Gaunt (Bass) and instrumentalists Louis Creac’h, James Toll, Jane Gordon, Michael Gurevich, Sophia Prodanova (Violin), Jonathan Manson (Cello), Timothy Amherst (Bass), Clara Blessing (Oboe), Inga Maria Klaucke (Bassoon), Sergio Bucheli (Lute) and Tom Foster (Chamber Organ), directed from the harpsichord by Jonathan Cohen.
An early review from The Times hails the album's "special joy" born of "expressive vigour" and "the intimacy of the music-making." "Balm is never more than a few notes away... even being rebuked by God sounds rather good fun when set to music by Handel."