Nicholas Kenyon 

Handel: Eight Great Harpsichord Suites; Handel, Purcell, Haydn: Suites and Sonatas

Nicholas Kenyon recommends two contrasting approaches to Handel's harpsichord music
  
  

Laurence Cummings
Laurence Cummings recorded Handel's harpsichord Suites in the Handel House Museum in London. Photograph: Sheila Rock Photograph: Sheila Rock/PR

From venues a stone's throw away from each other in London, contrasting approaches to Handel's extrovert Suites: Laurence Cummings is recorded in the intimate acoustic of Handel House in Brook Street, while Trevor Pinnock uses the warm, ample sounds of the Wigmore Hall. Pinnock is expansive, powerful, and expands his selection with Purcell and, more surprisingly, early Haydn, which is winningly excitable. Cummings is more measured and grave, but the cumulative effect of the eight suites (especially the seventh, with its tremendous Passacaglia) is quite wonderful – this is like Handel playing to you in your own living room.

 

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