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Introduction to the concert
Today’s music was composed for special occasions and was linked with leaders in national life and in music. Handel’s anthems were originally heard at the coronation of a king. Haydn’s mass initially celebrated the name day of his aristocratic employer’s spouse; repeated in honour of a special visitor – a hero in England and in Europe – it became known thereafter as the ‘Nelson Mass’.
Handel’s four anthems were the new element in a long and elaborate coronation service that included existing music, some of it composed for earlier coronations by composers such as John Blow, Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell. They lose some of their effect when performed consecutively in a concert, hence Brett Weymark’s decision to intersperse them with other music. Now, however, the roles are reversed, with Handel’s music providing the ‘classics’ and three young Sydney composers the new music in response.
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Coronation portrait of George II, made in 1727 by the studio of Charles Jervas.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Coronation portrait Caroline of Ansbach, made in 1727 by the studio of Charles Jervas. The Queen was a staunch friend and supporter of Handel.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Francis Lemuel Abbott’s portrait of Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, painted in 1799, not long after the composition of the mass that would take the hero’s name.
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Hospital Collection
