Handel's Royal Fireworks Music

Just listened to a recording of the Royal Fireworks Music from 1959 in its original scoring - 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 trumpets and 9 horns. I was already familiar with that arrangement having owned a recording of it for many years. But that one was an original instruments recording and while it sounded a bit unusual, it was quite good and didn't need getting used to. The 1959 recording, conducted by Charles Mackerras, was done before the original instruments movement and the modern instruments in this arrangement hit you like a ton of bricks. There wasn't a whole lot of subtlety there but I suppose it was a noble, if failed, experiment. Mackerras would go on to record many wonderful renditions of baroque music, including Handel's, but this wasn't one of them.

By the way, since I made the original post above, I did a google search on the above recording and almost every comment made on it was a rave. "Landmark recording" was the most common description of it. I paid a quarter for it.

I hve listened to this recording a few more times since the original post. It is starting to grow on me. There are a few spots that sound like a modern band recording rather than a baroque orchestra and that throws me off a little.

It has been reissued and available here: http://www.amazon.com/Music-Royal-Fireworks-Cti-Cori/dp/B00006L3X4/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1250621664&sr=1-17.