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Handel - Sonatas for Cello

trans. from the Recorder Sonatas by Carolyn Gibley

The Brook Street Band

Handel - Sonatas for Cello
Theo and Gibley play their transcriptions with impeccable style and with a warm rapport for the music. Slow movements come off especially well and, in one or two instances… the sustaining power...

Handel - Sonatas for Cello

trans. from the Recorder Sonatas by Carolyn Gibley

The Brook Street Band

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Theo and Gibley play their transcriptions with impeccable style and with a warm rapport for the music. Slow movements come off especially well and, in one or two instances… the sustaining power...

About

Handel Cello Sonatas? As Handel didn’t write any, that may raise a few eyebrows. Then again, period-instrument ensemble The Brook Street Band have been doing just that since their debut recording of Handel’s “Oxford” Water Music (AV 0028), a chamber version of the orchestral evergreen, which earned the all-girl baroque band a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Tapping into the ubiquitous 18th-century technique of recycling tunes by transposing or arranging for different instruments, The Brook Street Band – named after Handel’s London address – here take the set of recorder sonatas variously known as Op. 1, assigning the solo line to the cello, an instrument which with Handel had obvious affinity. The Brook Street Band’s second disc, Handel’s Op. 5 Trio Sonatas, became a favourite on Classic fM. This, their third release, is acclaimed and popular in equal measure.

Contents and tracklist

Larghetto
Track length2:11
Allegro
Track length2:07
Larghetto
Track length1:53
A tempo di Gavotti
Track length1:23
Allegro
Track length2:34
Largo
Track length1:56
Vivace
Track length2:53
Presto
Track length2:27
Adagio
Track length1:14
Alla Breve
Track length1:45
Andante
Track length2:10
A tempo di Minuet
Track length1:39
Larghetto
Track length1:48
Allegro
Track length2:20
Siciliana
Track length1:17
Allegro
Track length2:00
Larghetto
Track length2:36
Allegro
Track length2:40
Adagio
Track length1:57
Allegro
Track length3:22
Allegro
Track length2:21
Adagio
Track length1:14
Allegro
Track length2:26
Larghetto
Track length1:50
Andante
Track length2:58
Adagio
Track length0:49
Presto
Track length1:54

Awards and reviews

September 2007

Theo and Gibley play their transcriptions with impeccable style and with a warm rapport for the music. Slow movements come off especially well and, in one or two instances… the sustaining power of a bowed string instrument has an advantage over a recorder.

June 2007

…we can hardly blame Tatty Theo for wanting to appropriate music as good as Handel's recorder sonatas for her instrument, and neither can we feel that Handel would have disapproved. The supposition is even more easily made on hearing these spirited performances, which render the novel concept of Handel cello sonatas totally convincing. Baroque cellists, rush for these arrangements - it's your lucky day!

The Brook Street Band are a lively ensemble of period instrumentalists, always stylish, occasionally daring in their expressive response to this glorious music.
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