George Friederic Handel: Complete Harpsichord Music Vol. 2

Description

It is a somewhat curious circumstance that Handel is unanimously considered as one of the greatest composers of the eighteenth century, but that, at the same time, a large quantity of his oeuvre remains virtually unexplored outside a niche of specialists. Crowds gather when The Messiah is performed, and the Hallelujah chorus is part of our pop culture as very few other classical music works are. Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks are similarly disseminated, and extremely well known by the large public. Handel’s other oratorios and his operas are less frequently performed, as is his instrumental music in general (with the exception of the Concerti grossi and organ concertos); but, all things considered, what the general public knows is just the tip of the iceberg of his large output. It is true that Handel’s complete works constitute a very huge catalogue, which is difficult to master and to know in its entirety; however, for instance, so is Bach’s catalogue, but Bach’s numerous cantatas are probably better known than Handel’s operas, on average.
The most astonishing omission the musical world must account for is its neglect of Handel’s keyboard works. Whilst Bach’s keyboard oeuvre constitutes the daily bread of all harpsichordists, organists, and pianists, and a large portion of it must be mastered by all keyboardists aiming at a professional level, many keyboard players graduate from Conservatories worldwide without having played a single note by Bach’s most famous contemporary. And this is a very unjust incident of music history, since Handel’s keyboard works are by no means the minor works of a lesser composer, and they fully deserve a different kind of appreciation.
Furthermore, during his lifetime Handel was considered as one of the greatest keyboard players of his era; he came off with colours flying from a contest, or rather a keyboard duel, with Domenico Scarlatti, another exceptional virtuoso. It was acknowledged that Handel was the best of the two in his organ playing, as was reported by Mainwaring: “Though no persons ever arrived at such perfection on their respective instruments, yet it is remarkable that there was a total difference in their manner. The characteristic excellence of Scarlatti seems to have consisted in a certain elegance and delicacy of expression. Handel had an uncommon brilliancy and command of finger: but what distinguished him from all other players who possessed those same qualities, was that amazing fullness, force, and energy, which he joined with them”.
Handel had been a keyboard player all his life. He came from an artistic lineage which comprised Pachelbel, Kuhnau, Froberger, and his direct teacher, Zachow, who was an exceptional organ virtuoso. Therefore, although information is missing about Handel’s childhood, it can be surmised that he lived a kind of symbiosis with his keyboard instruments, and that he must have begun writing new works for them at an early age. A chronology of his compositions is difficult to establish, especially as concerns his youthful works; it has been supposed that a couple of Suites, among those still extant, may have been written in Halle. A contemporary of Handel, who met him in the 1730s in London, reports that Handel indicated four pieces among those issued by Witvogel of Amsterdam in 1732 as having been written “in his early youth”.
Later, when Handel was in Hamburg in his late teens (1703), giving keyboard lessons was an activity he regularly practised in order to make ends meet; this, furthermore, encourages us to surmise that he should have written new keyboard works on that occasion. It was a common practice for keyboard teachers to create pieces for their pupils, particularly for aristocrats. Since such works aimed normally at combining technical improvement with musical enjoyment, these could frequently be coupled in such forms as the Chaconne. This was a piece in ternary time, in the style of a dance, and founded upon a repeated bass line; the other part(s) created melodic variations over the harmony implicitly contained in the bass, with the result that each variation could count as an “exercise” (or “lesson”, as they were sometimes called in the English-speaking world) toward a specific technical goal, but, at the same time, the association of reassuring repetitiveness and refreshing novelty made that exercise very pleasurable.
During Handel’s stay in Italy, vocal music absorbed his full attention and his entire energy; unsurprisingly, the keyboard remained somewhat in the background of his life. Only in 1710, when Handel returned to his homeland, Germany (Hanover), was his interest in keyboard music rekindled. It is in fact in that decade that the bulk of his keyboard works was written – only a small percentage of his keyboard oeuvre was created ex novo in the later decades.
During an absence of the composer from London, a substantial portion of that output was printed, unbeknownst by him and, of course, without his authorization. Copyright did not yet exist, and piracy was very much practised. Of course, it was not thought of as of a virtuous deed, but neither was it prosecuted. The publication of pirated copies was even seen as a demonstration of a composer’s worth! Flattering as that might be, Handel was not particularly pleased with that publication, whose official issuer was an Amsterdam publisher (Amsterdam was a kind of safe harbour for all kinds of forbidden books), but whose actual printer was almost certainly John Walsh. Ironically, the publisher who probably pirated Handel’s works would later become his reference company during the years he would spend in London.
Back in London, between 1719 and 1720 Handel sought and obtained a Privilege from the King, and was therefore allowed the exclusive right to print his own works for fourteen years. This permitted him to prepare an edition of his keyboard works for his own profit and with some authorial control on what was printed. (Handel did not always perform careful proofreading on these publications, however, and therefore there are many unsolved issues in some of his works). Still, the wording of his Preface, which is in fact an open letter to England, is very meaningful and conveys the deep attitude of the composer in these endeavours: “I have been obliged to publish Some of the following Lessons, because Surrepticious (sic) and incorrect Copies of them had got Abroad. I have added several new ones to make the Work more usefull (sic), which if it meets with a favourable Reception; I will Still proceed to publish more, reckoning it my duty, with my Small Talent, to Serve a Nation from which I have receiv’d so Generous a Protection”.
These were the eight great Suites which are still today Handel’s best-known keyboard works. In spite of Handel’s statement that he would be publishing more keyboard works in the future, had the first edition been successful (and successful it was, beyond any doubt), the 1720 Suites were not followed by other new works. According to Handel scholar Terence Best, “the 1720 edition, although known as the ‘First Set’ of suites, represents [Handel’s] most mature work for the instrument”. Another edition actually followed, in 1733 (i.e. just before the Privilege’s expiration), comprising some works that had appeared in the pirated edition of 1719 but had not been included in the official publication of 1720. The 1733 pieces had actually been written before those of the 1720 publication, and they had not been their composer’s first choice on that occasion. Even though they do not always bespeak Handel’s full maturity as a composer, there are masterly works here.
Among them is the Suite in D minor HWV 449, which actually had not been printed in the Roger edition, and was therefore probably written between 1719 and 1733. For Best, “it is much the most mature of the suites, and is contemporary in style with the 1720 set”.
Pieces out of this Suite were reemployed in other suites: the Allemande, for instance, which is one of Handel’s most beautiful examples in this genre, found its way within the G-minor Suite HWV 451, and the Aria con variazioni, reminiscent of French music (e.g. Rameau’s Gavotte et variations from his A minor Suite) after a thorough revision, was included in the D-minor Suite HWV 428. The Courante represents some musical ideas found already in the Allemande, and the Sarabande is one of the most touching examples of Handel’s keyboard music, displaying a magnificent counterpoint.
The other D-minor Suite included here (HWV 448) is probably one of the earliest surviving examples of Handel’s keyboard art (it was probably written before 1707). Its opening movement represents the classical topos of the French Overture: an opening, slow section in dotted rhythm, followed by a fugato with a quick pace and closing on a shorter reprise of the initial, solemn music. In the Allemande, Handel skillfully plays with the listener’s ears, suggesting hidden parts, whilst the Courante is extremely brilliant and almost breath-taking. There are two Sarabandes here, and both are intensely expressive. Here again we have a movement with variations – a Chaconne in this case.
Almost coeval (inferentially) with HWV 448 is HWV 454, which, just as the preceding ones, was issued in the 1733 publication. It is an impressive essay of Handel’s mastery. The broad Allemande, ingeniously written, is followed by a Courante where one may discern the influence of Corelli. In the Sarabande, instead, the influence of vocal music is more clearly observable, and the final Gigue refers once more to Italian music for strings.
Other works, among the many offered in this Da Vinci Classics publication, come from the “Aylesford manuscripts”, once belonging to Charles Jennens, who penned the librettos for Israel in Egypt and Messiah. There are several gems there, including the G-minor Sonata and D-minor Allegro, which are pure Handel at his best.
Together, both the multi-movement works recorded here, and the shorter pieces, which may or may not have once belonged in larger works, display the fascinating array of Handel’s fantasy, of his creativity, of his capability to evoke the touching and the hilarious, the funny and the expressive, the lyrical and the light. It is “devoutly to be wish’d” that endeavours such as the current one will contribute to the rescue of Handel’s keyboard works from the near-oblivion in which they have fallen, and to bring them back, eventually, in the keyboard classrooms as in the concert halls of the entire world.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2023