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"On the first disc, which includes a version of Handel’s third keyboard suite ornamented by Gottlieb Muffat, Hogwood plays an instrument built by the Hamburg keyboard builder Johann Albrecht Hass in 1761. Its plangent yet warm textures produce a fascinating sound, utterly different from the familiar hard brilliance of harpsichords. A fastidiously stylish performance of Aria and Variations in G (‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’) is a fine advocacy for the clavichord’s virtues. On disc two, Hogwood plays two other keyboards, including a magical-sounding Gräbner instrument (Dresden, 1761) that is similar to a small Italian clavichord now in Maidstone Museum that reputedly belonged to Handel. A few movements from the Water Music show how Handel’s music might have been conceived before the compositional skeleton was garbed in orchestral flesh. Hogwood’s thoughtfully prepared programme and articulate playing is a laudable fusion of scholarly detail and artistic insight."
(David Vickers for Gramophone)
(David Vickers for Gramophone)
