Chi Boost

Found by chance in a Florence archive, Germanico may be the first work that Handel composed in Italy. An allegory on the War of the Spanish Succession, it is low on incident but long on suavity. Harpsichordist Ottaviano Tenerani has pieced together a putative provenance from the scant documentation of Handel’s movements before 1709. Venetian watermarks on the manuscript paper, and the flux of pro- and anti-Habsburg feeling in Italy at the time, suggest to Tenerani that Germanico was written for private performance in 1706 and is indeed, as the anonymous copyist wrote, ‘Del Sigr Hendl’. If the discovery of Germanico marks a career boost for Tenerani, he has repaid the favour in this stylishly executed performance by the ensemble Il Rossignolo.