HANDEL. Trio Sonatas Opp.2 & 5. AAM/Egarr

This superb recording of Handel's Trio sonatas forms the latest, and sadly, the last, of the "Handel Opus Number" series recorded by the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr of the past two years. It has been an excellent run. This series of recordings has set a new benchmark standard for Handel recordings, and each set in the series (see links, below) has been uniformly excellent. It is sad to see the series end, but of course, Handel only wrote so many of these non-vocal pieces during his career (Handel's prodigious output was turned mostly to vocal and oratorio pieces). The AAM has nevertheless taken what Handel wrote and done a masterful job of adding to the Handelian repertoire of recordings by producing a set that will be treasured by all enthusiasts.

The price on these recordings is quite high, but one must remember that this is the price (literally) we must pay in order to see state of the art recordings newly made by the world's best orchestras, and the Academy of Ancient Music, now under Egarr's lead, is certainly among that esteemed list of orchestras. The performances are nothing less than superb, and bring back the memories of the great series of recordings made with Pinnock and Hogwood from the 1970's and 80's. It can be easily seen after listening to these recordings just why the Academy has been the recipient of much praise and awards. These players have reached a level of excellence that clearly places them amongst the top performers to be found anywhere. But the recordings, too, made here by Harmonia Mundi, are also superb. The sonics are excellent, with great dynamic range, imperceptible noise levels, and fantastic orchestral balance. Before you rip these to your MP3 player, make sure you spend some time listening to them with a good set of headphones from the original CD's, and see what a performance can really sound like.

Make sure you read Egarr's comments in the enclosed liner about certain pieces of Handel's works being now listed as "spurious." It's an interesting set of ideas he expounds.

In short, I easily can rate this at my strongest rating level, with five stars for performance, five stars for recording, and three stars for price (but only because it is difficult to pay so much for a recording, but if this is what it takes to ensure we have more of these recordings made, then it is alright, and perhaps, in some way, to actually be encouraged). Don't miss out on this superb series.

Note
Make sure you also look into The Academy of Ancient Music's other recordings in the "Handel Opus Number" series, all available now:
Handel: Organ Concertos Op. 7
Handel: 12 Solo Sonatas, Op. 1Aca
Handel: Concerti Grossi, Op. 3; Sonata a 5
Handel: Organ Concertos, Op. 4 [Hybrid SACD]

It has been noted that the price for this two (2)disc Harmonia mundi (USA) recording of the six (6) Trio Sonatas Opus 2 by George Fridereric Handel and the seven (7) Opus 5 Trio Sonatas by the same composer, is a little high; however, you can believe me that this superb recording, is worth whatever price one has to pay for it, The recording exemplifies Handel's creative compositional genius and the works contained therein are played superbly by the academy of Ancient Music with Pavlo Beznosiuk and Rodolfo Richter fabulously playing the violins. Their performances are so "in tune" with wonderful intonation and with keen senses of rhythm. I really adored this recording because all of the Trios are so very melodic with very interesting rhythms plus the works are played marvelously by all involved,.

I have many CDs of Handel orchestral music, but this is my current favorite. Over the last year, I've listened to this repeatedly and it gets better each time. The music itself is fascinating and surprisingly varied. Technically, the performances are flawless. More importantly, the performances are very musical and flow beautifully. The recording is also excellent. It doesn't get much better than this for these works.

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