Handel's Trio Sonatas
Handel's Trio Sonatas
The Gramophone Choice
Trio Sonatas, Op 2 HWV386-91
Sonnerie / Monica Huggett vn
Avie AV0033 (66' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
With their boldness of invention, their expressive range and their extraordinary variety of three-part textures, Handel’s six Op 2 sonatas represent a peak of the trio sonata as a genre. Yet for some time there’s been no complete recording of the set in the catalogue.
These are polished and sophisticated performances fill the gap admirably. There’s much exquisitely turned detail, subtle timing, graceful shaping, and a happy sense of the musical logic. The two violinists play as if they were identical twins. Some listeners may feel these finely modulated performances lack the energy and freshness that ideally belong to the music, but there’s a great deal to compensate for that, and you won’t often hear this music more attentively, more lovingly played.
Additional Recommendation
Trio Sonatas – Op 2 HWV386-91; Op 5 HWV396-402
Academy of Ancient Music / Richard Egarr hpd
Harmonia Mundi HMU90 7467/8 (142’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
The Academy of Ancient Music’s project to record all of Handel’s works with opus numbers reaches its completion with this double-bill of 13 trio sonatas. Most are played by two violins (Pavlo Beznosiuk and Rodolfo Richter) and basso continuo (Joseph Crouch and Richard Egarr). The Op 2 set features two sonatas that specify slightly different scoring: flute in HWV386 and recorder in HWV389 (both played by Rachel Brown).
The interplay between the AAM is Baroque chamber-playing of the very highest order: sincerely conversational, emotive and finely nuanced. Egarr and Crouch are an outstanding continuo team, providing attentive yet uncluttered support to the two upper instruments. Brown and Beznosiuk play together with touching eloquence in the Largo of HWV386 and excel in the jaunty jig that concludes HWV389. Beznosiuk and Richter interweave to gorgeous effect in the Largo of HWV387. On a few occasions the slower music could perhaps have been trusted to play itself with a more literal rhythmical pulse, and sometimes things seem precious if compared to the best alternative recordings, but of course this may also be an unavoidable consequence of listening to an entire collection of works that were never designed by the composer to be sampled together in one long sitting.
