Handel: Concerto grosso, Op. 6 No. 10 in D minor, HWV328

These recordings were taken from live performances at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 18th and Thursday 20th January 1955. Wilhelm Furtwängler was to have conducted these concerts, but sadly died in November 1954. Sir Thomas willingly conducted instead and the performances were given as a tribute to the great conductor and in memory of the friendship between Beecham and Furtwängler.

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is Australia’s finest period-instrument ensemble. Under their inspiring musical director Paul Dyer, their vibrant concerts and recordings combine historical integrity with electrifying virtuosity and a passion for beauty. Petroc Trelawney has already featured this on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.

Considered among the finest examples of Baroque orchestral music, Handel’s Concerti Grossi, Op.6, completed in 1739 over a mere four weeks, surpass the work of other outstanding composers of the form, such as Vivaldi, Scarlatti, and Corelli. Conceived as a grand cycle rather than as individual compositions, these 12 pieces demonstrate Handel’s facility blending a variety of styles and devices with seemingly endless melodic beauty.

Andrew Manze leads The Academy of Ancient Music in a vivid and vibrant performance.

This double hybrid SACD set is the second recording by Al Ayre Español and its conductor Eduardo López Banzo for Challenge Classics, and features a selection of six of Handel’s Twelve Grand Concertos, opus 6, otherwise known as Concerti grossi. Last year their debut release for the label was a highly-regarded disc of sacred cantatas by José de Nebra.

The musical director Eduardo López Banzo was born in Zaragoza in 1961. In the operatic field he is considered to be one of the most important specialists as regards Handel’s music for theatre. Eduardo López Banzo founded Al Ayre Español in 1988, and was awarded the Spanish National Music Prize in 2004, thanks to more than twenty years of musicological rigueur and performance excellence.

Handel’s Concerti grossi, Op.6 or Twelve Grand Concertos, HWV 319-330 were first published in London by John Walsh in 1739. Taking the older concerto da chiesa and concerto da camera of Arcangelo Corelli as models, rather than the later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio Vivaldi favoured by Johann Sebastian Bach, they were written to be played during performances of Handel's oratorios and odes. Despite the conventional model, Handel incorporated in the movements the full range of his compositional styles, including trio sonatas, operatic arias, French overtures, Italian sinfonias, airs, fugues, themes and variations and a variety of dances. The concertos were largely composed of new material, and are amongst the finest examples of the baroque concerto grosso.

This important release contains the incomparable wartime performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler in Berlin in 1942, by general consent one of the greatest accounts of this imperishable mastepiece ever recorded. On the second disc we have a vary rare rehearsal sequence of Beethoven's 'Leonore No 3' Overture with Furtwangler and Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 1948, together with a complete translation of what he says, with bar numbers added for those who would wish to follow the rehearsal with a score. We also offer three Beethoven Overtures, recorded at different times in Berlin, and some very rare items from concerts given in Buenos Aries by Furtwangler in 1950. The result is a major addition to the burgeoning repertoire of great conductors ofthe past on disc.