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More Handel Festivities

Michael Zwiebach on May 5, 2009
Bernard Labadie

The San Francisco Symphony and the Symphony Chorus contribute to the year’s Handel festivities with performances of three of the composer’s Coronation Anthems for King George II, and the Dettingen Te Deum. Both the anthems and the Te Deum (which commemorates a British military victory) are celebratory in the grand sense.

The Te Deum, especially, is festooned with a riot of instrumental color and moods that swing wildly from the bristling, martial opening, to the gentler chorus that follows and the more introspective “When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man.” Rarely has a royal family been so well-served by its official composer.