Luogo e data di registrazione		Remscheid (Germany) - dicembre 1961
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Dr. Alfred Krings
	Prima Edizione LP		Harmonia Mundi | HM 30 617 | 1 LP - durata 39' 18" | (p) 1962
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | 82876 70032 2 | 2 CDs - durata 49' 26" - 39' 18" | (c) 2005 | ADD
	Cover Art		-
	Note		L'edizione originale in LP corrisponde al contenuto del secondo CD dell'edizione indicata.

George Frederick Handel's flute sonatas appeared in Amsterdam in 1722 and had abundani later reprints, with a few trivial alterations, in London. We may take it that Handel composed these pieces, so rich in their variety of expression, in 1711 and 1712, while he still had charge of the music at the court of Hanover. Along with J. S. Bach's flute sonatas, Telemann's Fantasias, Vivaldi's concertos and the suites of the French school, they rank with the principal works of Baroque flute music. The flute at that time was a favourite instrument of virtuosi and amateurs Recorder and transverse flute still enjoyed an equal esteem; the progressive eclipse of the recorder does not come until the first half of the eighteenth century. The renaissance of early music, mainly in the last fifty years, has brought a parallel rediscovery of the old instruments. Attention has been paid at the same time to the musical practice and style of performance in past ages. The early eighteenth century know a certain latitude in the matter of scoring. Precise indications of dynamics, tempo, articulation and ornaments alse were still in large measure dispensed with. The players had broad scope for individual interpretation, above all in the slow movements for which the composer's notation gave no more than a skeleton of the melodic line. The figured bass likewise left the field open to melodic variants and a multiplicity of ornaments. The soloists in our recording have for many years specialised in the interpretation of old music. Fidelty to historic style becomes a vital and creative encounter with the musical ethas of a byfone age. Handel's instrumental music moulds with sovereign hand the stylistic elements of the Italian sonata and the French suite. The flute sonata in G minor is patterned on the so-called church sonata, the movements being in the sequence: slow - quick - slow - quick. A powerfully expressive larghetto ende with a cadence on the dominant, leading to an elegant andante. The two succeeding movements, adagio and presto, are in a similar relationship. The A minor sonata is likewise modelled on the same architectural scheme. The C major sonata approximates to a suite and is expanded by a gavotte to five movements; the final movement also, with a favourite theme of Handel's to be found in many variants throughout his work, is dance-like in character. The F major sonata represents a hybrid genre, the introductory pair of sonata movements being followed by two dance movments, a siciliana and a gigue.