Luogo e data di registrazione		Vienna (Austria) - settembre 1969 [26-30]
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Wolf Erichson [26-30]
	Prima Edizione LP		- Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" - SAWT 9491-A - (1 LP) - durata 51' 02" - (p) 1962 - Analogico [1-25] - Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" - SAWT 9559-A - (1 LP) - durata 44' 21" - (p) 1970 - Analogico [26-30]
	Edizione CD		Teldec - 4509-97471-2 - (1 CD) - durata 63' 40" - (c) 1995 - ADD
	Note		-

Only four of George Frideric Handel’s six sonatas for treble recorder and continuo were published during their composers lifetime (they appeared in print around 1730). The two sonatas in B flat major and D minor remained in manuscript, their very existence unknown to Friedrich Chrysander when he published volume 27 of his complete edition of Handel’s works in 1879. Not until 1948 did the English musicologist Thurston Dart publish the two remaining pieces under the title Fitzwilliam Sonatas (after the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where the autograph scores are lodged). Dart’s edition of the D minor Sonata contained only five movements, however. Two additional movements included in the autograph score - an Andante and a Minuet - were not published complete until the 1970s, in other words, after the present recording had already been made. Manuscript studies, including examination of the type of paper used by Handel, show that all six sonatas were written around 1712. Although they are explicitly scored for treble recorder, Handel availed himself in many of the movements of what might be termed a “neutral” instrumental style that contrasts with that of Telemann, who would draw on his intimate knowledge of an instrument to exploit its technique and compass to the full. The extent to which Handel drew on his own existing reserves may be illustrated by two examples among many: in around 1755 he added a number of orchestral ritornellos to the F major Sonata and published it, otherwise unchanged, as his Organ Concerto op. 4 no. 5 (HWV 293); and the opening movement of the B flat major Sonata was reused in 1726 in the overture to Scipione, while the Sonata’s third movement is almost identical to the final movement of the Violin Sonata in A major HWV 361. Although all six sonatas are relatively early works, a number of them already reveal the full extent of Handel’s genius, with subtle thematic linlw between individual movements and the use of tonality to create a sense of contrast. This is particularly well illustrated by the G minor Sonata, whose fast movements, while sharing the same theme, are clearly differentiated in terms of their time-signature and rhythm. The virtuoso writing of the third movement of the D minor Sonata sets this work somewhat apart from the other sonatas in the set: listen, in particular to the way in which brilliant scales and broken triads alternate in the upper voice and bass. The Trio Sonata in F major HWV 389 was first published by the Amsterdam-based firm of Estienne Roger in around 1750. Here, too, we find a totally different compositional principle from that found in Telemann's contemporary trio sonatas. Whereas the latter took steps to ensure “that the second part seemed to be the first" (to quote his autobiography of 1759), it is the recorder that predominates in Handel’s work, with the violin reduced to a subordinate role: in the opening movement it accompanies the recorder in thirds, filling out the latter’s rests by harmonising the bass line and acquiring a distinctive profile of its own only in the third and fourth movements; in the final Allegro - cast in the form of a gigue - it is again combined with the recorder. Martin Nitz ····· A brief history of the recorder 9. The recorder between 1750 and 1850 After around 1750 the recorder fell from favour as the Baroque flute gained in influence. A changing tonal aesthetic affected not only wind instruments but also strings, with violent arguments breaking out between the advocates of the gamba and champions of the cello. In attempting to defend the qualities of the gamba in the face of the cello’s encroachments, Hubert Le Blanc, for example, wrote in his Défense de la basse de viole (Amsterdam 1740): “The transverse flute is masculine in tone, since it is harsh at close quarters: it is far from agreeable to be close to the mouthpiece; but its sound becomes round and mellow the further away one goes. The recorder, by contrast, [...] is feminine in tone, tender and sonorous at close hand and seemingly resonant." A totally different attitude was struck by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart in his Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst, in which he describes the situation in Germany in 1784/85: “Flaute doulce. A flute approximately an ell in length, made of hardwood. It has six holes and uses the French bass clef. The tone is extremely soft and melancholic. Its range is barely two octaves. This flute will tolerate only very weak accompaniment and, by its nature, can be used only in funeral music, serenades and notturnos. The excessively quiet tone and narrow range of the instrument mean that it is now almost completely out of fashion and is no longer heard in church or at concerts. Before the transverse flute became popular it was formerly much cultivated, especially in Germany; people would play two such flutes, accompanying them with a bass flute, an instrument that looks much like a bassoon and is played at the top through a brass tube. Such a trio did not sound bad, but it was too soporific and seemed not really suited to the German spirit." It must be asked how well-informed Schubart was: after all, a recorder with six holes and a compass of barely two octaves was far from common in Germany at this time. Of some interest, however, is his comment on funeral music, a comment confirmed by Bach’s cantatas, for example And his remark that “people would play two such flutes, accompanying them with a bass flute” may have a bearing on the fact that a disproportionate number of Denner’s bass instruments have survived to the present day. Be that as it may it remains a fact that the recorder had all but disappeared from the musical scene by the middle of the 18th century surviving into the 19th century chiefly in the guise of two members of the same family the flageolet and csákány; both of which operate on the same fipple-like principle. In the early 19th century, amateur musicians could learn different types of these instruments: the “flageolet” or “flûte harmonique” in Paris, the “patent single, double or triple flageolet” in London, and the “csákány” or “flûte douce” in Vienna. The flageolet is a small fipple flute with four holes at the front and two at the back, with or without keys and a range of more than two octaves. Composers such as Krähmer, Heberle and Bousquet wrote for this instrument and even Berlioz reveals in his autobiography that he originally wrote for the instrument in “Le Repos de la sainte Familie” from L'Enfance du Christ. Peter Holtslag Translation: Stewart Spencer