Water Music (complete)

"This is a very attractive account of the three suites which comprise Handel's Water Music. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra are a San Francisco-based ensemble whose members play period instruments or copies of them. Nicholas McGegan has been their director since 1985 and, if this recording is anything to go by, he is achieving exciting results with them."
(Gramophone)

In 1715, King George I organised an entertainment on the Thames for his court. It was for this occasion that Handel composed the Water Musick, now his most popular work. This musical representation of every aspect of life in England at the time soon came to embody the quintessence of British taste and wit. It is hardly surprising that this anthology of pieces, intended above all to please, should have sealed the reconciliation of the composer with his monarch!