The Secret Handel: Works for Clavichord

"Christopher Hogwood’s incisive mind regularly leads to strong and imaginative concepts and this, the first of a series of clavichord discs dedicated to Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, is a perfect example. The clavichord has a history of domestic usage, the intimate nature of its utterances seeming both exquisite and slightly enigmatic. Its main mechanical feature of stretching strings gives the player the ‘touch’ to grade dynamics, alter pitch through vibrating and other idiomatic colouring. These are delicate nuances with an instrument of such softness, offered as fleeting gestures, usually for the player’s ears alone." - GRAMOPHONE

A continuation of the series so successfully begun with The Secret Bach [MET 1056], The Secret Handel brings to light a treasury of keyboard music by Handel played on the most intimate of instruments, the clavichord. The Secret Bach was a Gramophone "Editor’s Choice" in the May 2004 issue, and one of "This Month’s Top 5 CDs" in BBC Music magazine the same month. The Secret Handel is expected to meet with similar acclaim. The Secret Handel includes a reconstruction by Hogwood and clavichord expert Derek Adlam of a suite for two clavichords by Handel of which only one part survives. The program is divided over two CDs in part because there is too much music for one, but also because Christopher Hogwood believes that listening at the appropriate level to a full 70 minutes of clavichord is unnaturally tiring; the clavichord is a very quiet instrument. Clavichords by Hass, Bodechtel and Gräbner, with full specifications in the notes.