FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 37/2

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL, Six Organ Concertos, Op. 4, The Classic Edition for Solo Organ by W. T. Best. Dover Publications (reprint, London: Novello, 1858; with introduction by Rollin Smith). $12.95. Two factors contribute to the remarkable timeliness of this publication. First, it coincides with the reissuing of the critical edition of Handel’s op. 4 concertos (HWV 289–94) in Serie IV, Band 2 of the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (Bärenreiter, 2001)––the old 1956 score was so faulty that it had to be completely withdrawn. Second, it comes during a period of intensely renewed interest in the phenomenon of the 18th-century unaccompanied keyboard concerto, as this genre is now coming to be regarded by many scholars as an historical norm rather than as an exception. Handel’s original 1738 edition is a case in point: it comprised keyboard and orchestral parts published separately, with the keyboard part so fashioned as to constitute a complete arrangement in its own right. W. T. Best’s transcription is indelibly faithful to this concept, while otherwise rescoring the work for an essentially new medium––the 19th-century organ. Although no serious performer will play Handel-Best without also consulting the HHA (or even the old Chrysander edition, also reprinted by Dover), a few characteristics of Handel-Best are still worth noting. Handel’s organ writing, it will be recalled, is simple, straightforward clavier music, as there were no pedal organs in England during Handel’s time, and the available specifications for these organs suggests that Handel probably had only two sonorities at his disposal: loud and soft. But Best’s writing is idiomatic to the instrument as it was known and loved 120 years later, and presupposes a thoroughgoing pedal technique as well as a much wider palette of dynamics and sonorities. Handel’s approach to solo-tutti alternation is simple and straightforward, without much overlapping, and this, fortuitously, allows Best to scrupulously mark almost every passage as belonging either to the organ, the orchestra, or both, so that the performer always has an exact understanding of these formal delineations at his or her immediate disposal. Handel’s keyboard solos almost always involve only two-part writing, but Best augments these to three, four, or even more parts. (For an extreme example, with bravura pedaling, see the beginning of HWV 291/4.) Handel employs tutti al’ unisuono texture from time to time, and in Best’s renditions, these are mostly given as pedal passages or pedal solos (which suggests extensive manual to pedal coupling). Handel specifically prescribes ad libitum cadenzas in many places, and here, the manner in which Best rises to the occasion should, if for no other reason, justify the purchase of the present publication. Best’s cadenzas––unlike modern “historically informed” approaches––make no attempt to mimic 18th-century style, but in the best 19th-century tradition, are almost creative works in their own right. They appear in HWV 289/2, mm. 147–95; 290/2, mm. 114–67; 291/4, mm. 48b–64 (a “second ending,” not originally indicated); and 292/1, mm. 101–36. Textually, it is possible to raise qualms with some of Best’s readings, as for example, in 292/2, mm. 37–40, where the prevailing eighth-note motion is rendered in slower, quarter-note motion, or in the first movement, where the mordents in mm. 42–46 are given as appoggiaturas; and elsewhere, it is unfortunate that Best’s esthetic scheme does not always allow him to preserve Handel’s exacting and expressive tempo indications. It is worth knowing, therefore, that 289/1 is originally marked “Larghetto e staccato”; 290/1, “Sinfonia / A tempo ordinario e staccato”; 290/2, “Adagio e staccato”; 292/2, simply “Andante”; and 294/1, “Andante allegro.” With respect to HWV 291, it should be borne in mind that this was originally a concerto grosso for violin and cello, which originally contained an organ solo in the second movement only. With respect to all the concertos, it is well-known that their original intent and purpose was to serve as “entractes” within Handel’s theatrical works, and in the case of HWV 294, this fact may touch materially upon the interpretation: the concerto was originally written for the harp, and was included in Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, where, after the recitative “Timotheus plac’d his harp on high” it is intended to convey the harp playing of the Greek bard Timotheous; the rest of Handel’s original scoring involves two recorders, violins playing con sordini, and lower strings playing (possibly throughout all movements) pizzicato. Finally, it is worth quoting (as Rollin Smith does in his introduction) Charles Burney’s 1785 statement that Handel “first gratified the public by the performances of CONCERTOS ON THE ORGAN, a species of music wholly of his own invention, in which he normally introduced an extempore fugue, a diapason-piece, or an adagio, manifesting not only the wonderful fertility of his invention, but the most perfect accuracy and neatness of execution.” But this statement should be taken critically, particularly with regard to the simplistic notion that this or any “species of music” was wholly Handel’s (or anyone else’s) own invention.