Fireworks

The Water Music is divided into three suites which are clearly differentiated by their tonality and instrumentation. The pieces with the lighter, more delicate instrumentation would certainly have been played indoors while the pieces with wind demanded double forces of woodwind and made their fullest effect in the open air. Handel’s other great al fresco work, the Music for the Royal Fireworks, was composed to commemorate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Opus 3 is, in its splendid and resourceful way, music of forceful originality and bold contours, and is derived from many varied sources - opera, anthem, Passion, even Corelli.

Christopher Herrick continues the Scandinavian leg of his endlessly popular Organ Fireworks series with a disc of music performed on the great organ of Västerås Cathedral in Sweden. The programme is, as ever, a tempting pot-pourri of pieces from around the world, some popular, some rare; some light-hearted and some serious, and demonstrating all facets of virtuoso writing for the organ.

Sir Charles Mackerras has a reputation for providing exciting and full-blooded interpretations in Janáček and baroque music and this thrilling collection of Handel recordings dating from almost 50 years ago is a case in point.

Jordi Savall's exemplary performance of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks is among the finest available on disc: refined and precise, but very big, with blood-stirring grandeur. This is just the kind of extroverted, rousing presentation that best highlights the music's open-air ceremonial function. Savall's Le Concert des Nations is essentially a chamber orchestra with double or triple winds, but the sound he elicits from the group is majestic and surprisingly powerful. The playing is crisp and the rhythmic articulation bracing, but the sound is never brash. In fact, more often than not it is seductively sensual, a heady integration of precision and supple, shapely phrasing. Handel left no authoritative edition of the score of Water Music and it has traditionally been divided into three suites, but Savall reorders the material into two suites, a decision that makes more sense in terms of key relationships and that sounds entirely satisfying.

Released in 2002, before the band broke from Hut and moved to Indepediente, Fireworks: Singles 97-02 is, as the title indicates, 13 of Embrace's singles during that time period. Culled from three albums, The Good Will Out, Drawn from Memory, and If You've Never Been, the compilation is a good collection of what the group offered and a nice look back into late-'90s British rock. With cuts like "All You Good Good People," "I Wouldn't Wanna Happen to You," "One Big Family," and "Wonder" (plus a cover of the Schoolhouse Rock! track "Three Is a Magic Number"), Fireworks is a good choice for Embrace fans who want to relive the band's glory years without having to invest in the full albums.

Welcome to BBC One’s night of fun for New Year’s Eve! Great British Pop band Madness are set to brighten up the night with a live concert on BBC One, performing their biggest hits as they kick off the New Year celebrations.

Embrace - Fireworks EP
FLAC, EAC, LOG & CUE | Lossless Artwork | Size: 176 MB + Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Hut Recordings HUTCD84 | Country/Year: UK 1997
Genre: Brit Pop | Hoster: FP/FF

"Fireworks" (released 5 May 1997 on 7", CD) is a song by Embrace, released as the group's first EP, and the first to reach the top 40 in the UK (#34). This was an EP, consisting of 3 songs from the debut album "The Good Will Out", which reached #1 in the UK charts.

This disc, very well recorded in 1984, presents the Fireworks music on period instruments but in the version that includes the strings. Pinnock later recorded the version that used a large wind band. The rest of this disc features two concertos for two horns which prove to be thoroughly entertaining.

Kevin Mallon leads a Toronto-based, 34-person group of period instrumentalists called the Aradia Ensemble on this new, bargain issue, and it's a terrific, ear-opening show. The music is, above all, joyful, with dance movements galore and plenty of giddy pomp. Mallon has rethought the tempos, almost all of which, he feels, should be quicker than we're accustomed to hearing. If you listen to the Air, the fourth movement to Suite No. 1, you'll be surprised at how good it sounds played without the usual serious "aura" that drags it down. Mallon writes in the accompanying notes that he looked at an 18th-century score for the piece and discovered it was marked "presto".