Handel: Complete Harpsichord Music Vol. 1 – Fernando De Luca

This Da Vinci Classics double CD opens an ambitious project, featuring a total of 20 disks divided into eleven volumes (each comprising one or two CDs). The result of this monumental enterprise will be the publication of Handel’s complete works for the harpsichord. This first volume, comprising two CDs, includes some individual pieces and some multi-movement Suites, Sonatas and Partitas; among them, Suite HWV 443 with its Chaconne (HWV 484), with 49 Variations, and Suite HWV 453, which is probably built over materials from the overture of a lost opera from Handel’s Hamburg period, Nero (1705). Together, these pieces offer a magnificent hors d’oeuvre to the ambitious recording project they open. From the symphony of these twenty disks, the full portrait of Handel the harpsichordist will emerge in total clarity.