Splendour & Devotion – St George’s Hanover Square, London

Conductor and Director: Kristian Bezuidenhout

St George’s Hanover Square, the church where Handel himself worshipped, is a particularly apt setting for Splendour & Devotion, a concert given as part of the London Handel Festival by The English Concert under their Principal Guest conductor, Kristian Bezuidenhout. It’s a glorious programme consisting of three of Handel’s Chandos Anthems alternating with two of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

The relative intimacy of St George’s allows the audience to savour how extraordinarily rich and inventive these compositions are. Each is differently scored, some featuring solo voices (soprano, tenor and bass and occasionally, a countertenor), others showcasing individual baroque instruments. Handel composed the Chandos Anthems in his early years in London in the 1710s for the Duke of Chandos.

The concert opens with My Song Shall Be Always, HMV 252. Soprano Hilary Cronin, a performer whom BBC Music Magazine named as a Rising Star in 2022, offers exceptional warmth and tenderness here and throughout the concert. An equally fine performance is given by tenor Hugo Hymas, a former Britten-Pears Young Artist and Rising Star of the Enlightenment. From the start, with ‘For who is he among the clouds’ and ‘God is greatly to be feared’, Hymas shows his exceptional lyricism.  Later, they are joined by bass Matthew Brook, who adds impressive depth and authority.

The instrumentalists are all of the highest calibre. Particularly compelling is leader of the orchestra, violinist Nadja Zwiener. She has been described as ‘insanely virtuosic’, and indeed, to watch and hear her is to be convinced this is no hyperbole. At one stage, a delightful dialogue between her first violin and Clara Espinosa Encinas’s oboe varies from intensely dramatic to quietly wistful.

Director Kristian Bezuidenhout conducts for the most part from the harpsichord. He is dazzling to watch, his intense engagement manifest moment by moment in his eloquent movements. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos are almost contemporaneous with the Chandos Anthems, Bach presenting them to the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721. We may feel almost over-familiar with the works, but in this performance, we hear them afresh and recognise the truth of what Bach scholar, Christoph Wolff said of the work Bach simply described as being for ‘several instruments’: ‘the modest title does not begin to suggest the degree of innovation exhibited in the daring combination as Bach yet again enters uncharted territory.’

Brandenburg No. 2 bursts with joyous energy, which the English Concert confidently maintains throughout.  Here, the soloists are joined by recorder player Tabea Debus, who dances through the demanding complexity of the part, and Mark Bennett, whose trumpet playing is clear and vivid.

Handel originally scored As Pants the Hart in the version HWV 251a for organ and basso continuo, but in the Chandos anthem, HWV 251b, he adds memorable solos for soprano and tenor, together with melancholic trio, ‘As pants the hart for the cooling stream’ and the duet, again for soprano and tenor, ‘Why so full of grief?’

For Bach’s fifth Brandenburg Concerto, Bezuidenhout relinquishes his baton to perform as harpsichord soloist. His gorgeous ornamentation is particularly notable, as is his astonishing virtuosic cadenza. After the gentle violin and flute section (lovely playing by flautist Georgia Browne), the work moves to its dance-like conclusion.

The evening concludes, fittingly, with the Chandos Jubilate, HWV 246, Handel’s setting of Psalm 100. The rich variety of the scoring continues, Handel beginning with the tenor solo, ‘Oh be joyful in the Lord’, followed by the duet for soprano and bass, ‘Be sure that the Lord, he is God’ and coming to rest with the powerful fugal chorus ‘As it was in the beginning’.

Truly an evening of splendour.

 Reviewed on 25 February 2026. The London Handel Festival runs until 28 March 2026