COMPOSERS: Handel; Krieger; Zachow
LABELS: Metronome
ALBUM TITLE: Handel; Krieger; Zachow
WORKS: Suite III in D, HWV 428; Suite for two keyboards in C minor, HWV 446; Allemande in B minor, HWV 479
PERFORMER: Christopher Hogwood (harpsichord)
CATALOGUE NO: MET CD 1060
On this ingenious compilation we have Handel, one of the Baroque’s masters of grand gesture, presented not on a full-blown two-manual harpsichord but on the age’s most intimate keyboard instrument, the clavichord. Any worries about compatibility, however, soon melt away in the hands of Hogwood, long a passionate advocate of the muted charms of the clavichord.
The starting point of this project was the child Handel’s practice on a clavichord, secreted in an attic, away from his father’s disapproving ears. It includes music by Krieger and Zachow which he may well have played and from which he certainly borrowed in later life. Muffat, whom Handel also leant on, is represented here by his own much modified version of a Handel keyboard suite which opens this collection.
Performing on three distinguished 18th-century German clavichords, all magnificently recorded, Hogwood is throughout an eloquent advocate even if occasionally the articulation is a little clipped; an disc to return to often. Jan Smaczny