Handel - Keyboard Works, Volume 2 HWV 434-442

The two collections of suites that Handel himself issued in 1720 and 1733 form the main pillars of his keyboard music. For Handel, the suite was a self-contained genre with a cyclic formal design. Thus, although indebted to the sequence of movements customary at the time, each suite in these two collections has distinctive features all of its own.

This new edition by the renowned Handel scholar Terence Best draws on Peter Northway’s ground-breaking volume of 1970. Many new discoveries have made it necessary to thoroughly revise Northway’s work. All these research findings have been incorporated in our volume along with the Urtext from the “Halle Handel Edition”.

The volume also contains an informative appendix with alternative versions and movements that Handel withdrew before publication. This comprehensive edition of the 1733 collection is rounded off with a detailed preface, thereby creating a new edition that satisfies every prerequisite for professional performances at the highest level.