Hi there,

here is a live recording of the Händel's suite Nr.2.
Comments and critiques are well welcomed

Jana

Handel - Suite in f Major, HWV 427

Sounded very nice, Jana; I like your trills. It's on the site. However, in the future, please submit movements of a set in separate attachments, as this is what we prefer.

Thank you, Monica! Sorry, I will submit in the future the movements in separate attachments.

jana

A marvellous performance ! Handel's suites are far too little known (I'm working on one, too).

Your elaborate ornamentation is veru well executed. I'm not sure if it does the music any good though when played on the piano. On a harpsichord it may be another matter, but here I find it too much of a good thing. It reminds me too much of Rameau and Couperin
IMO it would be better with the ornaments and trills just a bit simpler, so that they don't get overbearing and distract from the music.

I'm glad you don't do ornaments in the fugue. It always gets me how good Handel's fugues are, and surprisingly difficult too. I cannot imagine it being played better than here.

Yes please provide separate tracks in future, and also the HWV numbers, as Handel wrote several suites in the same key.

Jana,

This certainly is a lovely performance.

I have never really explored Handel's keyboard works. I'm not even sure why not. Your performance has put me in the mood to try some.

Scott

Thank you Scott and Chris for your comments!

@Chris: On which Händel`s suite are you working?
Which track exactly do you mean, with regard to simple ornaments and trills?

On the harpsichord would be totaly different, I agree

Jana

The E minor, HWV 429. I like that it starts with a fugue


If I remember well, I found all tracks a bit too frilly with ornaments, except the fugue, where I was glad you did not do any.
It is a matter of taste of course. I am too much used to Bach where ornamentation is generally not as elaborate as in Handel.

A truly superb performance!

@Chris: E minor is nice, apparently you like the fugues especially

I asked you, which track do you mean, because I thought, you mean probably the 1. track with the many trills. But they are all originally by Händel I didn`t any
ornaments there.The only ones I did, are in the 3. track. Händel wrote there just the basic chords.

I agree with you, Bach`s ornamentation is generally not as elaborate as in Händel.

@rsmullyan: Thank you

Jana

Hi Jana, this is a brilliant performance! I'd like to say that your fine playing endowed with intelligence and elegance reminds me of that by Angela Hewitt
BTW I agree to Chris more or less about the trills. You wrote that Handel elaborated the trills himself. Despite of that, the trills in the first piece of this suite indeed have the effect of distracting a bit, and we can suppose that was caused by the fact that this suite was written for harpsichord, not for the modern piano. Performing this kind of music on the original version and on the modern piano often requires from the performer to undertake some slight changes for adapting it to our instrument, I think (for example simplifying trills). If such a thing is not allowed, one has to spend long and hard time to incorporate the harpsichord things into the today's setting more naturally. I recorded two keyboard sonatas of Johann Christian Bach for the site and in one of them I had the same difficulty with rather odd trills.

I would like to echo what others have said, namely that this is a very impressive performance. I wonder about the trills.. they do seem obtrusive on a piano. Perhaps under the different sound decay characteristics of a harpsichord they would be less so. (It's a very long time since I played a harpsichord, so I don't have any real feel for what they would be like in that context.) Lovely playing however, crisp and cleanly articulated.