HANDEL - Domestic Opera
Artiste: Hank Knox - Harpsichord
EMCCD7770 · Price: 17.40$ CAD

In the eighteenth century, the only way to enjoy opera out of season was to perform it in a reduced format. Some of the most widely circulated editions and manuscript copies were devoted to solo keyboard transcriptions, most notably in England those of operas by Handel, who had triumphantly entered the stormy waters of Italian opera in London in 1711 with his Rinaldo. This recording features keyboard transcriptions of excerpts from this and other operas, by Handel himself and by the versatile William Babell. Hank Knox plays these works with all the bravura and sentiment that swayed contemporary audiences in Handel’s own performances. The historical English harpsichords used are from the Benton Fletcher Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments at Fenton House in London.

“The entire program is both entertaining and uniformly fascinating…. The instrument by Swiss-English builder Burkat Shudi and Johannes Broadwood, from 1770, would soon face competition from the up-and-coming fortepianos produced by their own firm and others. It included various devices for generating dynamic contrasts, several of which are employed here in Knox's colourful, kinetic performances. An excellent job all around from Knox and the early-music.com label, which has been successfully drawing on the large pool of top-notch talent available in the Montreal area.”

James Manheim, Allmusic.com, 2009