Handel's 12 ''Grand Concertos'' are well served with integral recordings on both period and modern instruments; with the latter the choice is now widened by the completion of the Guildhall String Ensemble's set, two-thirds of which I dealt with in February. My comments on this final disc should be taken together with those in that earlier review, whose conclusions now apply equally to the whole issue. The GSE's taste for quicker tempos is even more evident in the last four concertos (in No. 11 they score five out of five!), though at its most moderate the margins are small, and in no case does one feel that the music is being frog-marched through the exit door, their rather quicker delivery of the Andante of Concerto No. 11 has a delightful lilt that escapes the other groups I discussed in my previous review, who dwell rather more on its expressive qualities. On the whole this is a youthful celebration of Handel at his most buoyant, joyous and good natured, but the graver moments are not overlooked; there is, for instance, a hushed solemnity in the Lento of Concerto No. 10, enhanced by a respectful regard for dynamics which takes the pianissimo down to a finely controlled whisper.

The whole set is, moreover, a celebration of what Handel wrote down, for the GSE are content to resist many temptations (not, I hasten to say, of undesirable kinds) which others accept, to embellish the score or even to seek out inegales; the comfortably audible harpsichordist is too, reluctant to abuse his freedom to ad lib. In the end it comes down, as I wrote in February, to personal taste since each of the mentioned modern-instrument versions has something good to offer; my own leans towards the GSE's, for its freshness (and clean recording), with I Musici on Philips at the opposite end of the pile, but I would not take strong issue with anyone who came to a different conclusion.

-- John Duarte, Gramophone