A sad tale of boom and bust lies behind Handel’s Chandos Anthems. Written for James Brydges, “The Apollo of the Arts” and first Duke of Chandos, these 11 anthems represent the extravagant height of personal patronage in early 18th-century Britain. Brydges amassed his considerable fortune whilst paymaster of Queen Anne’s army during the War of Spanish Succession. Ironically, it was this war that would be his family’s undoing. 

All the same, during the good times he turned Cannons, his estate near London’s Edgware, into a lavish expression of his affluence, building a Palladian-style mansion, filling it with old-master paintings and employing his own private musical establishment. From 1717 Handel spent about two years as composer in residence, creating amongst other things these anthems which were first performed in the local church of St Lawrence, Little Stanmore which Brydges had remodelled into a baroque jewel. 

A few years after Handel left the duke’s employ, Cannons was completed at the eye-watering cost of £200,000. Brydges was left to rely heavily on income from the South Sea Company which had a monopoly on sending slaves to...