Hit-and-miss Handel at the Göttingen Festival

Ask anyone to name the greatest classical composers and certain names are bound to come up – Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach. But ask them which composer’s music they’d most like to live with for a week, exclusively, and answers will change. Greatness is one thing, but a great festival composer is quite another – someone whose works have not only sufficient quality and variety to stimulate, but also a certain comfort, a clubbable ease about them. Handel is one such, a composer whose music has spawned festivals from London to Halle, Dublin to Tokyo.

It’s only appropriate, given the composer’s long association with England, that two of these festivals – London and Göttingen – are now directed by an Englishman. Laurence Cummings has spent a career with this music, and his affection, understanding and excitement radiates out through the dancing energy of his instrumentalists and the emotional pitch of his singers.