DCD34053
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685–1759): OVERTURES & SUITES
William Russell (1777–1813): Complete Organ
The Organ of St James’s Church, Bermondsey (DCD34062, 3CDs)
Voluntaries
The two books of voluntaries William Russell published before his untimely death open a window on an important and neglected period in English music. Sitting on the cusp of the Romantic period, they bring together the influences of Handel, Haydn and of Russell’s friend and contemporaries including Samuel Wesley and John Stanley in a fascinating stylistic mix. For this premiere recording of the complete voluntaries, John Kitchen has faithfully observed Russell’s original performing instructions on a restored 1829 organ whose period qualities bring the music vividly and compellingly to life.
‘immaculately presented and superbly played’ – Classic FM Magazine ‘a delight in every way’ – Choir & Organ, April 2009
Within a Mile of Edinburgh
John Kitchen, Malcolm Green (DCD34005)
Rediscovering Georgian Edinburgh’s musical past: a musical snapshot of an Enlightenment-era phenomenon with great social repercussions. This recording features John Kitchen performing fortepiano repertoire by composers working in Scotland during the Georgian period, when these works were published for performance on the popular square pianos sold in Edinburgh’s wealthy New Town. Paired with the elegant variations are the songs that inspired them, collected by Burns, Thomson and Johnson and published in The Scots Musical Museum of 1787, and sung here by young baritone Malcolm Green. The popularity of Scots song in the latter half of the eighteenth century also carried political significance in a nation recently torn by the strife of the Jacobite Rebellion.
‘A generous, attractive programme’ – International Record Review, June 2003
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Compact Disc Booklet:
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Tintoy
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DCD34053
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Kitchen plays Handel
Early keyboard music on Delphian
François Couperin: La Paix du Parnasse
Lucy Carolan and John Kitchen harpsichords (DCD34012)
Though much of Couperin’s harpsichord music was written for a solo instrument, he composed a small number of pieces for two harpsichords, somewhat in the manner of a trio sonata. Lucy Carolan and John Kitchen pair their considerable talents on two of the world’s most exquisite original French instruments, the 1769 Pascal Taskin and the 1764/83
Goermans/Taskin double-manual instruments in the Russell Collection of Early Keyboards. This unique and unforgettable recital is a must-have for enthusiasts and serious Baroque connoisseurs alike.
‘Prepare to be knocked out by this collection’
– The Herald, September 2003
Instruments from the Russell Collection Vol II
John Kitchen early keyboard instruments (DCD34039)
Edinburgh University’s Russell Collection is one of the world’s finest collections of early keyboard instruments. The second volume in John Kitchen’s ongoing project to bring its musical exhibits to life matches music by Handel, Purcell, the Scottish composer Robert Bremner and others including Mozart’s son Franz Xaver with a gloriously vigorous menagerie of spinets, virginals, chamber organs, clavichord and harpsichords.
‘a supreme achievement … Every one a gem, as are Kitchen’s stylishly bright performances’
– The Scotsman, March 2006
Recorded on 17-18 December 2008 at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh
Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing & mastering: Paul Baxter
Instrument preparation: John Raymond
Image (p2): MS excerpt from William Babell’s transcription of Rinaldo
Photography: Raymond Parks
Design: Drew Padrutt
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Delphian Records – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
With thanks to the University of Edinburgh and to Eleanor Smith and Wayne Weaver
The overtures to Handel’s operas and oratorios enjoyed a wide currency both during and beyond his own day, often independently of the works to which they belonged. Documentary evidence attests to this, as do the sets of orchestral parts published (and subsequently reprinted) by John Walsh between the 1720s and 1750s. The overtures were also transcribed for solo keyboard performance and evidently much played in that form; we cannot doubt that Handel approved of this, because he himself made keyboard arrangements of a number of them. Handel’s friend, the formidable Mrs Delany, whose copious correspondence is a source of so much valuable first-hand information, refers to Handel playing excerpts of oratorios and other works on the harpsichord.
Five transcriptions of overtures survive in the composer’s own hand, but the Handel scholar Terence Best believes from stylistic evidence that Handel was responsible for about twenty in total.1 Best draws his convincing conclusions largely from the manner in which the orchestral textures have been adapted and recomposed to produce idiomatic keyboard writing. John Walsh published many
See George Frideric Handel: Twenty Overtures in authentic keyboard arrangements, edited by Terence Best in three volumes (Novello, 1985). Best’s preface is highly informative, providing much information about the source materials and discussing the methods of transcription.
more, some rather clumsily or over-literally transcribed by unknown hands. His various publications include Handel’s Sixty Overtures from all his Operas and Oratorios Set for the Harpsicord or Organ (c.1755), and Handel’s Overtures from all his Operas and Oratorios Set for the Harpsicord or Organ (1760). The overtures continued to be played as solo keyboard pieces throughout the nineteenth century, often from reprints of Walsh’s editions and latterly in inflated, if undeniably effective, late Victorian arrangements by organists such as W.T. Best and others; indeed, the practice continued well into the twentieth century. The music is so strong and of such integrity that it survives transcription well.
Of the eight transcriptions included here, Radamisto and Teseo are believed by Terence Best to be authentic Handel, although the sources are not autograph. The other six, all particularly fine pieces, are taken from Walsh’s Sixty Overtures. Handel shows endless resource in these works; although almost all are French overtures, the variety is remarkable.
Handel’s Occasional Oratorio was hastily assembled, using much borrowed material, in 1746; it was a piece of patriotic propaganda in support of the Hanoverian monarchy, a response to the Jacobite rising led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart. The oratorio itself is not highly regarded, but it contains much fine music, not least its stirring overture in the
Double-manual harpsichord, Jacob Kirckman, London, 1755
The prolific Jacob Kirckman was born in the Alsace near Strasbourg and emigrated to England in the early 1730s. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1755, the year in which this harpsichord was built. It was part of Raymond Russell’s original collection, and is reputed to have been his favourite harpsichord. In contrast to many rather plain English instruments, it is extremely richly decorated, with lavish marquetry work and figured walnut
panels. Apart from its importance as a musical instrument, it is a superlative example of English furniture design and execution. It has the usual English disposition with two sets of 8’ and one set of 4’ strings. There is an extra set of jacks placed so as to pluck the strings very close to the nut, giving a bright nasal sound, and sometimes rather inappropriately called the ‘lute’ stop. On this recording the Kirckman harpsichord is used for all the overtures.
Notes on the instruments
Single-manual harpsichord, Thomas Barton, London, 1709
This is the only surviving harpsichord by Thomas Barton, and one of very few extant early eighteenth-century English harpsichords; it forms part of the Rodger Mirrey Collection which was generously donated to the University of Edinburgh in 2005. Our view of English harpsichords is largely coloured by instruments dating from after about 1730,
and so it is instructive to hear the rather different, ‘earlier’ sound of the Barton. It has two sets of 8’ strings, and its modest size and unpretentious appearance do not prepare the listener for the extraordinarily rich and characterful sound which emerges. It seemed appropriate to use it for the two Handel suites, with which it is more or less contemporary.
trumpet key of D major. The customary two sections of the French overture are followed by a lyrical adagio in B minor and a rousing march Unusually, the overture to Athalia (1733) is not in the French style, but is cast in the three-movement (fast–slow–fast) Italian plan: a spirited allegro in time, a linking grave which requires embellishment, and a further allegro in duple time. Some of this musical material was also used as the basis for the trio sonata in G, Op. 5 no. 4, and in the overture to Parnasso in Festa (a work which borrows extensively from Athalia).
Radamisto begins with a strong, arresting musical gesture, and makes much use of tirades, those characteristic upbeat flourishes which had been a feature of the French overture since its invention by Lully in the 1650s. The fugue is a fine example of Handel’s flexible approach to fugal writing.
The overture to Samson is one of Handel’s finest, although the transcription published by Walsh and played here is rather literal. The transcriber has made no attempt to render idiomatically the repeated notes of the string texture, and other textural aspects are also rather unsatisfactory. Here (and elsewhere) I have taken the liberty of adapting and filling out the textures to some extent. The opening andante is in triple time and in two repeated sections; a short adagio cadenza leads into a particularly energetic fugue (partly based
on Telemann and Muffat). Handel concludes with an elegant minuet in ABA form, its germ borrowed from Reinhard Keiser but, in the words of Winton Dean, ‘improved and developed … beyond measure’.
The overture to Saul is expansive: four separate movements, appropriately setting the mood of splendid celebration and pageantry with which Act I of the oratorio commences. The opening allegro in C major, the key in which the oratorio is largely based, exploits the interplay of various instrumental groupings, which can be reflected on the keyboard only to some extent. The gentle larghetto in A minor leads into a further C major allegro which features the organ as a solo instrument. Once again, Handel concludes with a minuet in which his extraordinary melodic gift is apparent in the soaring violin line which spans almost two octaves.
The opera Il Pastor Fido dates originally from 1712, and was expanded and revised in 1734. The 1712 version begins with an overture in D minor, of which an incomplete keyboard transcription in Handel’s hand has come down to us.2 For the 1734 revival Handel substituted the present F major overture which is an entirely different piece (using some borrowed material). It was included in Walsh’s Sixty Overtures, and is a characteristic French overture, beginning
It has been recorded by the present author on the 1765 Thomas Parker enharmonic organ at St Cecilia’s Hall on Twelve Organs of Edinburgh, Priory PRCD 700AB.
DCD34053
in majestic, dotted style; the vigorous fugue which follows is worked out with comparative thoroughness. Handel often concludes his overtures with a dance in lighter mood, and does so here; an elegant bourrée follows the fugue.
The opera Teseo dates from 1713; its overture is again French, but here a return to the slow dotted style (marked lentement) leads directly into an allegro where trio sections for two oboes and bassoon alternate with the full string texture. Rinaldo was first given in 1711 and proved an operatic triumph; it was several times revised and revived. The keyboard version of its overture published by Walsh was an arrangement by the virtuoso London harpsichordist and Handel’s contemporary, William Babell. As is typical of Babell’s style, it contains copious added embellishment, especially in the luxuriant adagio which connects the two sections of the French overture with the final giga.
It is difficult to establish a chronology for Handel’s harpsichord suites. Although the celebrated Eight Great Suites were published in 1720 by Handel himself, and Walsh published further suites in 1733, many movements apparently date from much earlier, probably from the composer’s youth or early maturity.3
For detailed information on the background to the suites and questions of chronology, see the preface to Peter Williams’s edition (Wiener Urtext, 1991), which was prepared in collaboration with Terence Best.
The Suite in A (HWV 454) is cast in the standard four movements of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue. It probably dates from the early 1700s, and reflects the young Handel’s knowledge of the seventeenthcentury German keyboard masters whose music he had no doubt studied with his teacher Zachow in Halle: Froberger, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Kuhnau and others. This is true also of the Suite in G (HWV 450), which contains an opening preludio and a closing menuet in addition to the standard four dances. The sarabandes in both suites bear a distinct family resemblance, and show that Handel’s melodic gift was already well developed.
© 2009 John Kitchen
Biography
John Kitchen is a Senior Lecturer in Music and University Organist in the University of Edinburgh. He also directs the Edinburgh University Singers, is Director of Music at Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, and Edinburgh City Organist with duties at the Usher Hall. He gives many solo recitals both in the UK and further afield, and is much in demand as a continuo player, accompanist, lecturer, writer and reviewer.
John has recorded extensively both for Delphian Records and for a number of other labels. A recent Delphian release (DCD34062, 3 discs) offers the complete organ music of William Russell (1777–1813) played on the almost-contemporary 1829 Bishop organ in St James’s, Bermondsey in London. This recording was part of a major project funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and has received much critical acclaim. The recording of a disc surveying nine historic keyboard instruments from the recently bequeathed Rodger Mirrey Collection at St Cecilia’s Hall is in progress.