Coronation Anthems (Handel)

A coronation anthem is a piece of choral music written to accompany the coronation of a monarch.

Many composers have written coronation anthems. However the best known were composed by George Frideric Handel. Handel's four coronation anthems use text from the King James Bible and were designed to be played at the coronation of the British monarch. They are Zadok the Priest, Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened, The King Shall Rejoice, and My Heart Is Inditing. Each was originally a separate work but they were later published together.

Although part of the traditional content of British coronations, the texts for all four anthems were picked by Handel—a personal selection from the most accessible account of an earlier coronation, that of James II of England in 1685. One of George I of Great Britain's last acts before his death in 1727 was to sign an "Act of naturalisation of George Frideric Händel and others". His first commission from Handel as a newly naturalised British subject was to write the music for the coronation of George II of England and Queen Caroline which took place on 11 October the same year. Within the coronation ceremonies Let thy hand be strengthened was played first, then Zadok, then The King shall rejoice, and finally My heart is inditing at the coronation of the Queen. (In modern coronations the order is Zadok, Let thy hand be strengthened, The King shall rejoice and My heart is inditing, with the order of Let thy hand be strengthened and The King shall rejoice sometimes reversed.)

Right from their composition the four anthems have been popular and regularly played in concerts and festivals even during Handel's own lifetime. He re-used substantial extracts from them in many of his oratorios without many changes (other than to the text), notably Esther and Deborah. Two of the anthems were played at the 1742 inauguration of the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, a hall dedicated to chamber music. Their success perhaps contributed to the popular image of Handel as a composer whose music required a huge number of singers and musicians (the more the better) - in other words, the character criticised by Berlioz as "a barrel of pork and beer". In practice, Handel often adapted his music to the occasion and to the skill of those for whom he was writing, and no occasion could be grander than a coronation. The ceremonial style of the anthems differs from his music for the theatre just as his Music for the Royal Fireworks (the latter designed for open-air performance) differs from his instrumental concertoes. The anthems show a completely extrovert tone, managing massed forces and important contrasts rather than delicate colours - with the wide spatial reverberation in Westminster Abbey, he did not waste time and effort trying to show small points of detail.

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