Te Deum in D major ‘Dettingen’ HWV283
Organ Concerto No 14 in A major HWV296a
Zadok the priest HWV258

The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, is one of Britain’s great mixed choirs. Under its new director, the mercurial Stephen Layton, it has reached new heights of musical excellence in this latest disc for Hyperion. Accompanied throughout by the Academy of Ancient Music, the choir performs one of Handel’s most florid and dazzling works, the Dettingen Te Deum, which was written to celebrate King George II’s triumphal return from the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. As might be imagined, much of this work is thrillingly bellicose, but some highly cultivated writing shows the composer’s range, expressive versatility and imagination.

The disc also includes a stylish performance of the Organ Concerto No 14 in A major with Trinity’s former musical director Richard Marlow at the organ, as well as Handel’s best-loved and most gloriously ceremonial anthem, Zadok the Priest.



SUNDAY TIMES CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK ; GRAMOPHONE RECOMMENDS

'In a performance as expert and committed as this, the pealing D major choruses have an elemental boldness and grandeur of effect of which Handel invariably possessed the secret … Stephen Layton obviously believes strongly in a work that today ranks almost as neglected Handel. Under his fervent, energetic direction, Trinity College Choir (topped by a notably pure soprano line) strike a nice balance between choral-scholarly refinement and early, swashbuckling directness. The Academy of Ancient Music match them in style and panache, with superb trumpet solos from David Blackadder … Choral-orchestral balance is ideally judged in the atmospheric acoustic of Trinity College Chapel. Complementing the inspiriting performance of the Te Deum is a properly overwhelming account of Zadok the Priest … and a delightfully deft one (on a silvery-toned, six-stop chamber organ) of the A major organ concerto' (Gramophone)

- 'A magnificent Te Deum … Great singing with sprightly playing from the Academy' (Observer)

'The youthful voices of Trinity's choir sing superbly throughout, and quite magnificently in Zadok, which rounds off the disc climactically after a stylish performance of the A major Organ Concerto by Richard Marlow' (Sunday Times)

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Recording details: July 2007; Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, United Kingdom; Produced by Adrian Peacock; Engineered by Simon Eadon; Release date: June 2008;