Trevor Pinnock Handel

All of Trevor Pinnocks unmissable Handel orchestral recordings with the English Concert on period instruments, collected for the first time in a single release: Classic recordings of Op. 3 and Op. 6; A must-have for anyone remotely interested in Handel.

What a strange, wondrous work this is! Dealing almost exclusively with emotions–paternal, filial, and romantic love, sacrifice, jealousy, hatred, spite–there is very little “action” per se. But in Handel’s Tamerlano we are smack in the middle of these people’s hearts and it’s more suspenseful and moving than operas with battles, great political themes, wind machines, and exotic dancers. In short, absolute ruler Tamerlano has conquered and taken the Turkish Emperor Bajazet captive. Despite his engagement to Irene, Tamerlano loves Bajazet’s daughter Asteria; Andronicus, his Greek ally, loves her too and Asteria returns Andronicus’ love. Although it appears as if Asteria also has accepted Tamerlano’s love (to the horror of Bajazet, Andronicus, and Irene), in fact she plans to kill him. She and her father are condemned to death when her plot is discovered, but Bajazet commits suicide and in a last minute change of heart, Tamerlano allows Andronicus and Asteria to wed, while he takes Irene as bride.

English organ music before the mid-nineteenth century tended to commune with itself and must indeed often have given satisfaction to a mere audience of one, the player. The widely-acclaimed exceptions are the eighteenth-century concertos with orchestra, with Handel as the presiding genius, and the often exciting voluntaries of John Stanley, whose popularity with congregations must have been bad news for a tired verger wanting his supper. But these well-planted forms wilted and dropped when handled by lesser masters. It took a special sympathy to be able to exploit the capabilities of England's modest little organs.

Verses in praise of music for St Cecilia's Day were fashionable in the seventeenth century but in poetic inspiration none equalled Dryden's two poems in which he attempts to imitate the effects of music in language. He wrote this one, his Song for St Cecilia's Day, in 1687; it was set to music during the poet's lifetime but not, of course, by Handel whose setting dates from 1739… The highlight of Handel's score for me is, without question, his hauntingly beautiful setting of Dryden's second stanza, ''What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!''. Here, especially, Handel matches a text which Dr Johnson regarded as exhibiting the highest flights of fancy with a tenderly expressive cello obbligato.

Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert's famed Handel recordings, performed with period instruments! Includes Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks; 6 Concerti Grossi, Op. 3; 12 Concerto Grossi, Op. 6; Concerto a due cori No. 3 in F major, "Concerto in Judas Maccabaeus," and more.

On 100 discs (99 CD & 1 DVD), this box presents the complete oeuvre of Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert on Archiv Produktion. Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn and Mozart are the focus of the repertoire. Numerous recordings such as the Brandenburg Concertos, Corelli's Concerti Grossi or the symphonies of William Boyce are among the milestones of recording history. A Bach album from the ensemble's early days is released for the first time on CD, as well as the never-published Dead March from Handel's "Saul". A 184-page booklet with essays by Trevor Pinnock and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the director of the Royal Academy of Music, as well as numerous photos and documents complete the extensive portrait.

Trevor Pinnock is one of the world's leading exponents of historical performance practice, and this collection of Baroque keyboard favorites is one of his most successful attempts to communicate his musical values to a broad audience. These popular works are often anthologized, but seldom have they sounded as fresh and exciting as they do here. Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith and Bach's Italian Concerto are the best known of these selections, though Pinnock's playing liberates them from their use as flashy encore pieces and instead treats them as more intimate entertainments. François Couperin's magical Les baricades mistérieuses and Rameau's Gavotte Variations are also well known, and their inclusion on any disc of the harpsichord's "greatest hits" is de rigueur. Domenico Scarlatti's two Sonatas in E major are still brilliant, even at the lower tuning (A=415). The remaining works of this collection are perhaps less-widely heard, but each offers insights into both Pinnock's interpretive skills and the instrument's wealth of possibilities.

Belshazzar (HWV 61) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. The libretto was by Charles Jennens, and Handel abridged it considerably. Jennens' libretto was based on the Biblical account of the fall of Babylon at the hands of Cyrus the Great and the subsequent freeing of the Jewish nation, as found in the Book of Daniel.

Here is another fine performance of the Fireworks Music in its original scoring for nine horns, nine trumpets, 21 oboes, 21 bassoons, three snare drums and three timpani. It makes a grand noise, but just as interesting is the music that conductor Trevor Pinnock has assembled from other Handel works, something the composer himself did, to provide a rich and enjoyable selection of orchestral music that we would ordinarily never hear in this form. Pinnock has had a tendency in the past to sound somewhat stiff in Handel's music, but here he lets his hair down and everyone concerned seems to be having a very good time.