An English Coronation, 1902-1953

Works by Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Handel and Wesley Simon Russell Beale (narrator); Gabrieli Roar; Gabrieli Consort & Players/paul Mccreesh

Signum Classics SIGCD 569

159:21 mins (2 discs)

Thirty years ago Paul Mccreesh and the Gabrielis brought out

A Venetian Coronation 1595. A vivid imaginary reconstruction of the ceremony marking Marino Grimani’s installation as Doge, it sparked a craze for contextualising reconstructions that continues to this day. Mccreesh’s forces even revisited the trailblazer with A New Venetian Coronation 1595 recorded in 2012. Now they set their sights closer to home with an English pick-and-mix fantasy coronation drawing on those of Edward VII, Georges V and VI, and Elizabeth II; a project delivered with Mccreesh’s customary attention to detail, ranging from sourcing appropriate timpani to calculated spatial effects such as the Regalia Procession heard moving through the distant cloister. It’s a labour of love and sounds it.

Whereas the Venetian discs presented a largely musical experience, generous swathes of the spoken liturgy read by actor Simon Russell Beale assuming the Archbishop of Canterbury’s mitre create a different dynamic, somewhat akin to eavesdropping on an outside broadcast. Incisive in the orchestral works – what scintillating woodwind playing he secures in Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 – Mccreesh is at his considerable best in the choral items. And while the rafters-raising Walton Te Deum, organ-enriched Zadok the Priest and cunningly-layered ‘I was Glad’ consummate a pomp and circumstance of their own, a ‘still small voice’ registers with even more potency in a beautifully modulated account of Purcell’s ‘Hear my Prayer’ and the unruffled serenity of the Tallis Litany. Vivant the Gabrielis – not forgetting the massed 250 young singers of their outreach ‘Gabrieli Roar’. Paul Riley

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★★