About the piece:
This sonata is without a doubt one of the finst there are – not only in Handel’s repertoire – but in the over all repertoire of sonatas for recorder. It is a 5 movement piece – each giving inspiring material for the player to work with, and leaving much space for the performer to give his own saying.
About op. 1
About the composer
From wikipedia : George Frideric Handel (23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-English Baroque composer, who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi. His life and music may justly be described as “cosmopolitan”: he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England. Born as Georg Friedrich Händel (IPA: [ˈhɛndəl]) in Halle in the Duchy of Magdeburg, he settled in England in 1712, becoming a naturalized subject of the British crown on 22 January 1727.[1] His works include Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Strongly influenced by the techniques of the great composers of the Italian Baroque era, as well as the English composer Henry Purcell, Handel’s music became well-known to many composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Searching on the internet, there are quite a few performances to be found:
Munich Barouqe players featured here give a solid peroformance on recorder and organ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPpVcUtHThQ
The recorder player chooses beautiful ornaments, but every now and then he seems to rush them a little within the beat.
In the second movement – notice somewhat peculiar articlulation choices.
The 3rd movement is beautifuly performed..(but, please, anyone, help out the organ player…no page turner in the audience?)
4th movement (last – as they play the version without the gavotte) : Markus uses clever and witty ornamentations, artuculation and octave leaps…I am not sure I would pick such – but they work real nicely.
Yours truly – in a recording from 1999, which I rather still like today.
\ I am accompanied by Isidoro Roitman on archlute and Shalev Ad-El on harpsichord.
I shall eb willing to answer any question regarding the interpretation
purchasing the sonata:
In Andrea Borstein’s fantastic site Flauto Dolce one can of ra very small fee, get recorder music. All 4 recorder sonatas from op. 1 are published here in a fantastic edition.
In this page – you shall find many of Handel’s pieces for recorder. scroll down for the Sonata in C.
http://www.flauto-dolce.it/pag_handel.php
