“Well, we’ve had a coronation,” I say in my latest music podcast — my latest Music for a While. “I realize I’m American, not British,” I quickly add. “But I mean ‘we’ the world. Isn’t everyone interested, to some degree?” I think so.
Let me do some more quoting:
If it’s time for a coronation, it’s time for Zadok the Priest, Handel’s great anthem from 1727. He wrote it for the coronation of George II. It has been played and sung at every British coronation since, I understand.
Handel was German, of course, but I once heard him described as an “honorary Englishman.” He could be as English as anyone. He could also be as Italian as anyone, certainly in his operas. What a talented guy.
A bit more?
Zadok the Priest, the coronation anthem, has a marvelous, ingenious buildup. A buildup in the orchestra. Then the chorus bursts forth, with these words: “Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, anointed Solomon king.” Thrilling, the way Handel handles it (no wordplay intended). Absolutely thrilling.
I play a recording made in 1982, by Trevor Pinnock and his forces. I note that, in that year, Elizabeth II had served 30 years on the throne. She would go on to 40 more — good ones, too. Amazing.
So, my podcast begins with Zadok the Priest. What else is there? Oh, some Mozart (Don Giovanni). Some Leroy Anderson (his piano concerto). Some Grażyna Bacewicz (a Pole who lived in the first half of the 20th century). Two masterly piano arrangements by the astonishing Godowsky. And so on.