Chandos Anthem No. 10 (HWV 255) in G Minor for Winds & Strings

Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a German, later British, baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.

Chandos Anthems, HWV 246–256, is the common name of a set of anthems written by George Frideric Handel. These sacred choral compositions number eleven; a twelfth of disputed authorship is not considered here. The texts are psalms and combined psalm verses in English. Handel wrote the anthems as composer in residence at Cannons, the court of James Brydges, who became the First Duke of Chandos in 1719. His chapel was not yet finished, and services were therefore held at St Lawrence in Whitchurch. The scoring is intimate, in keeping with the possibilities there. Some of the anthems rely on earlier works, and some were later revised for other purposes. The Chandos Anthems are not anthems of the kind we might today normally think, but rather the kind of multi-movement, cantata-like sacred devotional pieces that first began to pop up in England with Henry Purcell and John Blow in the generation before Handel.

"The Lord is my light" comprises nine sections of music, beginning with an overture and then alternating solo arias with rich choruses that, though perhaps not quite the stunning achievements of the choruses contained in the great English oratorios yet to come, nevertheless must be counted among the truly magnificent examples of high Baroque English choral writing. The optimistic text of "The Lord is my light" is extracted verse-by-verse from a handful of Psalms, Psalm 27 being perhaps most prominent among them, providing as it does the text for no fewer than four of the Anthems' eight sections of texted music.

The first of the Overture's two sections plunges forth dramatically with a series of trill-flourishes in G minor, while the second offers up the quick-paced, pseudo-fugal texture normal to overtures of the day. The text of the first of the solo tenor's three arias, "The Lord is my light and my salvation," is taken from the very first verse of Psalm 27. This is a typical Baroque aria, with a running continuo line and a close relationship between the melody sung by the tenor and the music given by the violins as the tenor rests.

Psalm 18 is the source for the declamatory opening of "For who is God but the Lord?" (soon abandoned in favor of a wild, rapid crescendo that "shakes the very foundations"), while the tenor sings strains from Psalm 28 in "The Lord is my strength and my shield." A solo countertenor takes the spotlight in the aria "It is the Lord that ruleth the sea."

Handel opens the final chorus, "Sing Praises unto the Lord" with loose, unhurried choral imitation, supported by a repeating rhythmic figure in the violins. A full close in the dominant is made, and then real fugue on the text "I will remember Thy name from one generation to another" begins, building and building until the final "Amen" arrives, complete with plagal cadence, to draw a climactic conclusion.

No. 10 (HWV 255) "The Lord is my light" is based on Psalms 18, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 45.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandos....

Although originally written for Voice (STB), Violins, Oboes & Basso Continuo (Cello, Bassoon & Bass), I created this Interpretation of the Chandos Anthem No. 10 in G Minor (HWV 255) for Winds (Flute, Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).