Al Ayre Español
Handel's Memories - A selection from Grand Concertos op. 6
- Type SACD hybrid
- Label Challenge Classics
- UPC 0608917254822
- Catalog number CC 72548
- Release date 18 May 2012
About the album
Something new and something borrowed. In the days that Handel lived, it was common to use an existing melody and make it your own. Handel's Grand Concertos contains a surprising quantity of newly composed material, as well as some borrowings, such as the memories or musical anecdotes, written with intense lyricism and certain sentimentality, previously absent from his instrumental music.
His “operatic” Concerto No. 8, written in the ill-natured, though also lovely, tonality of C minor, is one of the most dramatic in the collection, and concurrently possesses one of the most interesting structures. It starts with a movement based on the main motif of an allemande – “a German piece” – by Johann Mattheson, published in his Pièces de clavecin (London, 1714, the same year as Corelli’s concerts).
The Componimenti Musicali by Gottlieb Theophil Muffat, with whom the German composer exchanged music during the 1730s, provide Handel with some ideas from which he builds formidable orchestral movements in these concertos. “He takes other men's pebbles and polishes them into diamonds”, the British composer William Boyce used to say of him. It could not be more true when we observe the use Handel makes of these and other loans. Al Ayre Espanol with this performance makes us aware of the sheer beauty of this music, which always turns into gold in the hands of master Handel: new or borrowed. Grand concertos grandly performed!
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11Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 1, in G major A tempo giusto
01:49 -
12Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 1, in G major Allegro
01:38 -
13Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 1, in G major Adagio
05:39 -
14Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 1, in G major Allegro
02:37 -
15Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 1, in G major Allegro
00:04 -
16Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 8, in c minor Allemande
05:42 -
17Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 8, in c minor Grave - Andante allegro
03:24 -
18Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 8, in c minor Adagio
01:30 -
19Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 8, in c minor Siciliana
03:59 -
110Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 8, in c minor Allegro
01:08 -
111Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 6, in g minor Larghetto e affettuoso
04:01 -
112Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 6, in g minor Allegro ma non troppo
01:36 -
113Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 6, in g minor Musette: Larghetto
06:01 -
114Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 6, in g minor Allegro
02:48 -
115Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 6, in g minor Allegro
02:18 -
21Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 10, in d minor Ouverture
04:12 -
22Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 10, in d minor Air
04:42 -
23Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 10, in d minor Allegro
02:56 -
24Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 10, in d minor Allegro
02:34 -
25Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 10, in d minor Allegro moderato
02:01 -
26Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 5, in D major [Ouverture]
03:56 -
27Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 5, in D major Presto
02:05 -
28Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 5, in D major Largo
02:53 -
29Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 5, in D major Allegro
02:11 -
210Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 5, in D major Menuet: Un poco larghetto
03:19 -
211Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 11, in A major Andante larghetto, e staccato
05:29 -
212Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 11, in A major Allegro
01:40 -
213Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 11, in A major Largo e staccato
01:55 -
214Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 11, in A major Andante
04:46 -
215Grand Concerto op. 6 no. 11, in A major Allegro
05:09
Caecilia-Concert, Ars Antiqua Austria & Eduardo López Banzo at Early Music Festival Utrecht
23-08-2011
This weekend the annual Early Music Festival in Utrecht starts and there will be Challenge artists performing on different locations.On Sunday August 28th the Caecilia-Concert will perform in VB Leeuwenbergh in Utrecht at 20.00 hours. The trio will play a number of beautiful works by Frescobaldi. About the last cd of the trio, called "Schmelzer & Co" the critics were enthusiastic, take for instance Gramophone: "Intonation is outstanding...and the ...
Jonas