Davis and Ponsford balance expression and cleanness as well as anyone I have heard, and it is hard to imagine a better performance of these sonatas any time soon.

Shorn of basso continuo, these sonatas sound more intimate than ever. They even have a poignant quality-even the ones in a major key...Davis’s playing has a nicely vocal quality to it...Also, both he and Ponsford avoid weighing the music down with ornamentation.

Handel’s recorder sonatas exhibit the same flair for thematic development and melodic attractiveness which one finds in his vocal music; and it’s just that cantabile quality Alan Davis and David Ponsford bring to these beautiful new recordings.