Handel Remembered

Kenneth Hamilton

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Cat No: PFCD235

Release Date: 21 June 2024

Label: Prima Facie

Packaging Type: Digipak

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 7141148051288

Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental

Description

Prima Facie is delighted to present Handel Remembered, a rare recording of piano pieces inspired not by JS Bach, but by his great contemporary George Frideric Handel, and played by Kenneth Hamilton, whose remarkable series of Liszt CDs have garnered such exceptional critical acclaim. Though the album features a little Liszt (the Sarabande and Chaconne from Handel's Almira), its climax is a commanding performance of Brahms' magisterial Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Baroque tribute pieces by Mozart and Beethoven precede the Brahms, as do Handel transcriptions by Charles Valentin Alkan, Wilhelm Kempff and Percy Grainger. The album ends with two "encores": Brahms' elegant arrangement of a Gavotte by Gluck, and Grainger's uproarious Handel in the Strand. This delightfully life-enhancing disc is, as ever, supplemented by Hamilton's unfailingly entertaining and informative programme notes.

"Hamilton brings his full pianistic firepower to composers and pianists inspired by Handel. A lovely idea, well realised, and a potent reminder of the respect with which Handel was held by future generations." Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Review

"72 minutes of keyboard magic at the very highest level, at the same time as instructive as it is enjoyable….Hamilton can definitively be counted among the top pianists in the world…One of the best piano recordings for a considerable time, with a clever and imaginatively assembled programme. Definitely strongly recommended." Artistic Quality 10; Sound Quality 10 Overall impression 10. Thomas Baack, Klassik Heute

"[Hamilton] brings his full pianistic firepower to other Handelian inspirations […]. It's a lovely idea, well realised, and a potent reminder of the respect in which Handel was held by future generations" – BBC Radio 3, Record Review (Andrew McGregor)

"Mozart wrote only a few bars of a Sarabande before abandoning the project, and Hamilton inventively uses the tiny fragment as a launching-pad for the much later Little Gigue, K574 – a miniature masterpiece Mozart dashed off as a souvenir for the court organist in Leipzig." – BBC Music Magazine (3 stars)

"The grandest work in this recital is Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Hamilton's great achievement here is the way he develops tension and builds momentum across the whole span of the work, finding glorious release in the concluding figure." – International Piano

"Hamilton's nimble fingerings and subtle pedaling work wonders in pieces that have been often recorded, including Mozart's "A Little Gigue," Beethoven's 32 Variations in C Minor, and Brahms's massive Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel. Equally involving are pieces much more rarely heard, such as Alkan's "bracingly vigorous" (as Hamilton nicely puts it) version of a chorus from Handel's oratorio Samson and Liszt's complex, 11-minute-long fantasy on two dances from Handel's early opera Almira...Hamilton's booklet essay is, as usual with his CDs, full of humor, information, and fresh insights. All in all, I felt that I had just attended a gloriously varied recital, hosted by the performer himself." - Ralph P. Locke, Arts Fuse

An Arts Fuse Best Recording of 2024 ("Locke's List")
Tracklisting