Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks; Water Music (2003)

Just as Handel heard it

If you like Baroque music and particularly if you're a Handel fan, this is probably the version of the Royal Fireworks music to own. When I heard it on my local classical music station, I stopped dead in my tracks and stood transfixed until it finished--and I don't do a lot of stopping dead, believe me! To my mind, this recording sweeps you right back to the 1740s. I'm convinced this is the way it sounded back then, to King George II and to Handel himself. Period instruments, period style and period sensibility--it's all here!