Handel...The Harmonious Blacksmith Of Music

[vers la flamme]

Nice, I didn't know Pinnock recorded any of them. Going to check that out.

[Jo498]

That's the reissue original issue of the Pinnock. He also played the complete 5th suite on an earlier anthology (there is another anthology on crd with older music (Byrd etc.) which I prefer). (The Archiv disc titled Harmonious Blacksmith only has the variations that was included in the Handel re-issue)

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NB the d minor suite with the famous Sarabande (orchestrated version used in Barry Lyndon and a Levi's commercial) is not included by Pinnock. It's on the set you already have with an ultra slow performance by Gavrilov

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I stumbled across this article on the BBC's website.  It's about the clocks at the various British palaces and the horologist who is currently looking after them.  One thing that I read is about a clock that contains (plays) pieces (4) composed specifically for the clock by Handel.  Perhaps one can hear them online?  Or maybe not?  Neat story in any event.  Nice article and beautiful clocks to look at too. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-54387428

PD

[Handelian]

Handel was an amazing man and not just as a composer. He was a real entrepreneur who hired his singers, rehearsed them and the music, produce the operas and put them on and conducted them. And in his spare time he would compose more operas and more music! He really was quite phenomenal. He seem to have not only a musical genius but the genius for organisation as well. I have found reading Dr Jane Glover's book 'Handel in London' very illuminating and would recommend it to anyone. It's very interesting to compare him with Beethoven. Whereas if Beethoven tried to organise a concert he would create chaos, Handel had everything organised to the fingertips. And it can't be that it is because Handel was German because so was LvB

[The new erato]

I saw your introduction and want to welcome you from a Norwegian Handelian.

[Handelian]

I saw your introduction and want to welcome you from a Norwegian Handelian.

Thanks! Your set-up appears more ordered than mine! 

[Rosalba]

Handel was an amazing man and not just as a composer. He was a real entrepreneur who hired his singers, rehearsed them and the music, produce the operas and put them on and conducted them. And in his spare time he would compose more operas and more music! He really was quite phenomenal. He seem to have not only a musical genius but the genius for organisation as well. I have found reading Dr Jane Glover's book 'Handel in London' very illuminating and would recommend it to anyone. It's very interesting to compare him with Beethoven. Whereas if Beethoven tried to organise a concert he would create chaos, Handel had everything organised to the fingertips. And it can't be that it is because Handel was German because so was LvB

I have been wondering about this book, so thanks for the recommendation.

Happy New Year to all Handel-lovers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y56mMUIn9fY
George Frideric Handel - Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 01 in G Major (HWV 319): Allegro

[bhodges]

From a January 2 livestream at Wigmore Hall, Harry Bicket and The English Concert in an all-Handel program. Have to say (speaking as a listener for whom Handel is a bit out of my zone), the Concerto Grosso alone is thrilling.

Concerto Grosso in D Op. 6 No. 5 HWV323
Silete venti HWV242
Apollo e Dafne HWV122

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyx2gvJ9yd0

--Bruce

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

This one ought to be a sticky!

But until enough folks catch the Handel bug it will undoubtedly fluctuate.

My newest Handel arrival is a selection from the Concerti Grossi, Op.6 (Manze). Central works in Handel's oeuvre but until now overlooked by yours truly in favor of the operatic works, which, of course, are titans of the stage.

Fine works, the Op.6, and worth every inch of their popularity. Even so I feel the tug of the stage works at every turn. Something missing, I suppose, when 'endless' appoggiaturas (vocal, that is...) are left out of the picture.

Handel's Opus 3 and 6 CG are the Crown Jewels of the Baroque. Corelli's Opus 6 is lovely but I would say they are more like pearls, round, smooth, predictable whereas Handel's encompass dramatic vistas quite beyond Corelli's abilities. Bach's Brandenburgs I would say are the next in line after Handel's Opus 6. I think only Brandenburg 6 achieves parity with the overarching completeness of Handel's Grand Concerti. But mine is of course the minority opinion that strays from the established scholastic norm so deeply ingrained in our pedagogic and academic conventions. I do take comfort from the company of those great artists outside of our contemporary inherited prescriptions: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, G.B. Shaw, Gluck and...Bach himself reportedly said, "[Handel] is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach."
His opera, oratorios, anthems and secular cantatas alone could cement his status as "...the master of us all!" as Haydn declared. But the instrumental works push him to an unheard of realm. The Academy of Ancient Music recordings with Andrew Manze, Op.6 and Richard Egarr, Op.3 are, for me, the gold standard.  Handel's humanity, drama, sex, epiphanous grandeur and supreme compositional chops gush forth from Manze/Egarr's 13 strings and two continuo players with an "INCOMPARABLE" dash, musicianship, élan, in short, they are as tight as a frog's bu** cheeks.

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

This is a sublime example of Handel's exquisite vocal/orchestral writing.It contains  Silete venti, HWV 242 - Sinfonia and Cecilia, volgi un sguardo, HWV 89
Silete has the transcendently glorious aria "Date serta and the Cecelia has "Tra amplessi innocenti", a deliciously sensuous yet ostensibly chaste duet.

[The new erato]

Thank you for these fine posts about a favorite composer. Much appreciated.

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

400 pages for Havergal Brian and 5 pages for Handel is a crime... 

... anyway, I need some more Handel in my life... particularly interested at the moment in his choral music. I love the Coronation Anthems; I finally ordered a Messiah (Pearlman/Boston Baroque recording, which sounded great to my ears)—what are some other great choral works by Handel? Oratorios, cantatas, whatever you've got, I'll take it. Suggested recordings would also be appreciated.


I also really want to hear more of the concerti, especially the organ concertos. Who has made a good recording of these?

Choral music you say? Here is  a choral tour de force by Herr Handel. The 10 plagues of Egypt...pure choral splendor.
You can't go wrong with the AAM (Academy of Ancient Music) with Richard Egarr at the positiv for the complete organ concerti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32v8nMLpiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32v8nMLpiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32v8nMLpiQ

[The new erato]

The Hyperion series of oratorios is very good, and you cannot go wrong with McCreesh on Archiv.

[vers la flamme]

Bump for the one composer commanding the majority of my attention over the past week.

New discovery is the oboe concertos, beautiful; but I'm also revisiting Messiah and the Latin sacred music (Dixit Dominus, etc). For both, it's Andrew Parrott with his Taverner groups. Stunning performances.

[Florestan]

This box has been a source of much pleasure as of late.

[vers la flamme]

I've got two discs of Handel's Italian cantatas, one with Emma Kirkby, the other with Magdalena Kozena. Both are very good, I can't decide which I like better.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I've got two discs of Handel's Italian cantatas, one with Emma Kirkby, the other with Magdalena Kozena. Both are very good, I can't decide which I like better.

I don't know the Kirkby one, but I recall enjoying Kozena's CD. 

PD

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

Happy Father's Day, Handel!

...Your son,
Franz Joseph Haydn

P.S.-I'm a father too...of the symphony, which makes you the Grandfather of the Symphony.

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

Handel - Op. 4 Organ Concertos...the very 1st published keyboard concertos. Accept no substitutes.
What glorious, tragic or ebulliant melodies and the development (or not) of them. Richard Eggar delivers masterful solos replete with ingenious and effortless embellishments with tasteful registrations on a crisp, sweet chamber organ rather than earlier efforts on flabby, wheezy instruments. The AMA is brilliant as usual. Everything they touch is pure gold.

[DavidW]

I love his organ concertos and that recording.  I should try to give it a listen sometime this week.