Chandos Anthems

In the summer of 1717, after the performance of his Water Music during a royal cruise on the Thames, Händel began composing for James Brydges (1674-1744), who became the first Duke of Chandos and created the Cannons Concert at his estate in Cannons (near Edgware), with ten instrumentalists and three singers. Händel composed eleven anthems and a Te Deum for him from August 1717 onwards, and transposed and revised As pants the hart (HWV 251b). O sing unto the Lord a new song (HWV 249b) is an arrangement of an anthem written three years earlier for the Chapel Royal. The anthem Have mercy upon me, O God (HWV 248) was composed in 1717 and is a paraphrase of the Miserere. The Alleluia of Laat God opstaan (HWV 256a) is a harbinger of the famous Hallelujah chorus from Messiah (1741). Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen now revive these four Chandos anthems, composed for Cannons, with eight singers and eleven excellent instrumentalists.