Right of Necessity

This is the second recording which the Academy of St Martin in the Fields has made of Handel's 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6. The first was directed by Neville Marriner whereas the new one is directed by Iona Brown. handel assembled his twelve ''grand concertos'', as he called them, during the autumn of 1739 and they were published by subscription in the following year. Their stylistic terms of reference are marvellously diverse and, in this respect they represent an apotheosis of what had become, by the 1730s, an old-fashioned form of concerto writing on the continent. Variety in form, ingenuity of thought and Handel's own unmistakeable personality ensure that in no other sense can these satisfying concertos be regarded as archaic.