George Frideric Handel: Complete Recorder Sonatas

Album notes by Edmondo Filippini

Handel’s six sonatas for recorder and continuo, associated principally with the years 1724–1726, have become a central part of the instrument’s repertoire and represent one of the outstanding achievements of the Baroque sonata. They bring together his experience of vocal theatre and the instrumental language he had absorbed from Arcangelo Corelli. In this way, the six sonatas form a bridge between the vocal and instrumental styles of their time, exploiting the recorder’s expressive and technical possibilities without confining themselves to the relatively modest demands often associated with music intended for amateur patrons. Their original purpose nevertheless remains an intriguing question.

Handel was at the height of his success in London, with Giulio Cesare in Egitto on the stage, and was deeply involved in running the Royal Academy of Music. It may therefore seem surprising that he should have devoted his attention to an instrument particularly favoured by aristocratic amateurs, while writing music whose demands went well beyond a merely recreational use. One possible explanation lies less in drawing rooms than in the presence in London of outstanding professional wind players. The recorder virtuoso Kytch, for example, had collaborated in Handel’s operatic productions, where an instrumental solo could suggest love, death or the supernatural within an aria. Such performers also appeared in aristocratic circles and gave independent concerts. Their presence may have been one of the factors that encouraged Handel to write these sonatas for an appreciative public, although the circumstances of their composition cannot be established with certainty.

The publication history is no less complicated. Four of the recorder sonatas appeared in the collection associated with John Walsh and subsequently known as Handel’s Op. 1. An earlier issue carried the title Sonates pour une traversière, un violon ou hautbois con basso continuo and an Amsterdam Roger imprint, rather than Walsh’s own name. This was a false imprint: the edition is generally regarded as an unauthorised publication, issued from manuscript sources without Handel’s approval. Walsh’s later edition, published in 1732, bore the English title Solos for a German flute, a hoboy or violin with a thorough bass for the harpsichord or bass violin and advertised itself as more correct than the preceding edition. Although the collection’s title referred to several instruments, the designation flauto solo within the music indicated the recorder in the Italian terminology of the period. The surviving versions, including transpositions and arrangements for other instruments, help explain the sometimes confusing transmission of these works.

The editorial complications continued into the twentieth century. In 1948 Thurston Dart published material from manuscripts preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge under the title Fitzwilliam Sonatas. His edition included the recorder sonatas HWV 377 and HWV 367a, but divided the long D-minor sonata into two works. These editorial choices affected the form in which the music became familiar to modern performers. The revival of the recorder and growing interest in historical performance practice subsequently brought renewed attention to the original sources, allowing editions and performances to return more closely to Handel’s surviving texts.

The sonatas are closely connected with other parts of Handel’s output. The D-minor sonata recalls the oboe sonata in C minor, while its second movement shares material with the celebrated Hornpipe from Water Music. The opening movement of the B-flat-major sonata is related to material used in the overture to Scipione, where it appears transposed to G major. Such relationships reveal a composer for whom instrumental and theatrical ideas could move freely between different contexts, taking on a new character through changes of scoring, register and musical function.

Handel’s ability to rework his own music extended beyond these initial connections. A movement of the B-flat-major sonata was reused in the Organ Concerto Op. 4 No. 4, while the F-major sonata supplied the basis for the Organ Concerto Op. 4 No. 5, retaining much of the original musical substance. Many further examples could be cited: this imaginative reuse of material runs throughout Handel’s output and places the recorder sonatas within the wider continuity of his compositional life.

Original text: Edmondo Filippini. Original English translation: Fabiana Binarelli; revised for this page.

Performers and recording

Ensemble Festa Rustica: Giorgio Matteoli, alto recorder; Massimiliano Faraci, harpsichord and organ; Rebeca Ferri, Baroque cello; Stefano Maiorana, theorbo and Baroque guitar.

Recorded at Chiesa Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 14–16 June 2013. Sound engineering and mastering: Giuseppe Famularo. Editing: Massimiliano Faraci. Recording supervision: Ottavia Rausa.

The booklet identifies the performing edition as The Complete Sonatas for Treble (Alto) Recorder and Continuo, edited by David Lasocki and Walter Bergmann.

Cover photograph: Damiano Rosa, Villa Adriana, Rome. Production, design and art direction: OMK–Da Vinci. Printed with the support of S.P.L.M. Special thanks to Don Vincenzo Muolo.