Tune of the Day: Larghetto
The original sonatas for recorder of G.F. Handel belong to the standard repertoire for each flute player. The Recorder Sonata in A minor, Op. 1, No. 4, HWV 362, is one of the relatively few Opus 1 pieces that exist in just one version: many of the other sonatas are known under a number of different forms, which often causes great confusion.
About this sonata and its opening Larghetto, recorder player Pamela Thorby declared: “The A minor sonata is the most overtly dramatic of the six recorder sonatas. Imagine if you will the first movement as the tortured agonies of a would-be heroine as she laments upon the deceit of her lover. She weeps, the dotted bass line signifying the beat of a heavy and exhausted heart.” (Handel Recorder Sonatas on LINN Records, Pamela Thorby, recorder and Richard Egarr, harpsichord.)