Utrecht Jubilate by Handel
Rispah Goodacre (contralto)
Percy Manchester (tenor)
Booth Unwin (baritone)
The Choir of the Blackburn Music Society
The BBC Northern Orchestra
Leader, Alfred Barker
Conducted by Herman Brearley
The Te Deum and Jubilate, composed to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht, are among the earliest of Handel's English choral works. The success of the opera Rinaldo in 1711 had given the young composer a position in fashionable London circles to which no native musician could aspire. In 1713 Queen Anne had chosen Handel to write the Ode in celebration of her birthday, and the Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate were first performed in St. Paul's in July of the following year, and resulted in the composer receiving a royal pension of £200.
The whole of the Jubilate, from the brilliant opening trumpet passages to the magnificent Gloria, beginning with a double chorus and ending with a five-part fugue, breathes a spirit of strength and triumph.