Several of these violin works will be familiar to anyone who has played Baroque chamber music even casually, for since the day they were written they have been freely adapted for the recorder, flute, oboe, and other instruments. The task of deciding what might constitute Handel's complete works for violin and continuo is a complicated one, and this English disc purports to be the first release to attempt it. The booklet sketches out the criteria the performers used, mostly based on instrumental range and how comfortably the musical lines lie within it, and also stress the derivation of Handel's instrumental style from that of Arcangelo Corelli. Perhaps violinist and annotator
Adrian Butterfield makes too much of that connection, despite external similarities. A work like the Sonata in D minor, HWV 367, with its internal Furioso and concluding minuet, doesn't fit the Corellian pattern, and the focus on dramatic timing makes the music recognizably Handelian. The performances themselves are strong examples of contemporary period-instrument practice, with a rather reedy but crisp and agile violin accompanied by a cello-and-harpsichord continuo despite the original publication's problematic instruction to play the music on violin "with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsicord or Bass Violin." The set of pieces the performers have assembled makes for a varied program, with straight Italian-style sonatas broken up with various short pieces, including an Allegro for solo violin in G major, HWV 407, notated by Handel on some extra staves in a discarded portion of an opera score; it has never been recorded before. Though this is a recording aimed at those with a serious interest in Baroque music, it's one any listener can enjoy.