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God Rot Tunbridge Wells: The Life of George Frederic Handel
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(DVD - Code 2)
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Inhalt: |
Taken from the soundtrack of the film God Rot Tunbridge WeIIs, this unforgettable coIIection of Handel's 'hits' was rightly praised at the time for making HandeI sound, weII, like HandeI: fulI of Iife and fury, and not the usual syrupy stodge served up by massed choirs of thousands. Conducted by the great Handelian Sir Charles Mackerras, his fiery cast - Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Elizabeth Harwood, John ShirIey-Quirk, Simon Preston, Anthony RoIfe-Johnson, Valerie Masterson, Andrei Gavrilov, Simon Preston and the Westminster Abbey Choir and the indefatigabIe EngIish Chamber Orchestra - blaze their way through some of Handel's most famous music.
Mackerras had insisted on hearing the RoyaI Fireworks Music (for instance) as it had been written - for a veritabIe battery of wind and brass instruments, not to mention twenty side-drums - but how on earth were we going to assembIe that number of period-Iooking instruments to fiIm? Easy, said the cameraman: use mirrors. And so we did. No-one noticed, nor that the 'harpsichord' on which the deaf and aImost bIind HandeI doodles from time to time is actually a grand piano painted by Burne-Jones in 1890, aImost 150 years after Handel had died. (IronicaIly, the one person who did spot this was Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who then tried to buy the piano).
Mackerras adored the film and for a time went round slightly misquoting one of Handel's speeches from the film. Handel/Osborne/Trevor Howard says, with appropriate insouciance: ''What have I done for the Georges of EngIand?!'' Mackerras said: ''What have I done for the HandeIs of EngIand?'' Rescued them, great Sir. Rescued them. |
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