Handel: Flute Sonata in D major, HWV 378

On the album ‘Handel’s Delight’ the jazz group Baroque and Blue perform latter-day arrangements of music by George Frederic Handel, including four sonatas, and the chamber pieces “Süsse Stille, sanfte Quelle”, “Die ihr aus dunklen Grüften”, and “Künft‘ger Zeiten eitler Kummer”. The CD also features the renowned male soprano Jörg Waschinski.

The arrangements on ‘Handel’s Delight’ range from a relatively faithful offering of Handel’s text with a pizzicato bass and drums beefing up the continuo (as in HWV 367), to instances where the composer’s harmonies are intensified and certain phrases expanded.

Made by musicians and composers including Blaž Pucihar, Loy Wesselburg, Christian Haller, Roger Goldberg and Hans-Richard Ludewig - and Britain’s Andy Panayi - their inventive, catchy and jazzy arrangements let listeners recognise anew the freshness and invention of Handel’s music. In Handel’s day, he was dependent on his performing artists to bring their inspiration and skill to his music and bring it to life for his audience. In the interpretations recorded here, it similarly comes alive for today’s listeners.

Piers Adams is widely regarded as one of the greatest recorder players of our time. He has been heralded as ‘a dazzling virtuoso star’ (BBC Music Magazine), ‘staggering’ (Gramophone), ‘intensely musical and astonishingly colorful’ (Pittsburg Tribune Review), and ‘the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world today’ (Washington Post).

Piers has worked tirelessly to develop the recorder’s repertoire and reputation as a serious solo instrument, in particular through his researches into forgotten corners of the instrument’s repertoire, and his numerous arrangements and transcriptions from a wide range of genres.

In 1997 Piers founded his now world-renowned baroque quartet Red Priest, with whom he has toured the globe several times, performing over 1000 concerts on four continents in some of the most prestigious music festivals. The group has appeared frequently on TV and radio – including hour long televised features on LWT’s The South Bank Show (UK) – and recorded several acclaimed discs on Red Priest Recordings.

The Vivaldi CD is a 1988 recording previously released on Collins Classics and Cala United. The Handel CD is a 1989 recording previously released on Factory Records.