Handel Passacalgia

[unknown-user]

Hi all,

I’m looking to order a version of Handel’s Passacaglia online but I can’t seem to find an edition that my teacher knows. Can anyone find a edition? Or can anyone validate that the Magistretti edition on harp.com is a respectable edition?

~Sam

[Misty Harrison]

The one I learned when I was a student was edited by Tiny Beon and harp.com sells it.

[barbara-brundage]

The Magistretti is a big ornate version. The standard pedal harp editions today are the Tiny Beon or the one by Yolanda Kondonassis, which is in her collection. You could also play the real keyboard version, which is readily available as part of the Handel Keyboard Suite no. 7 in g minor, although harpists seem to shun it for some reason.

[barbara-brundage]

Incidentally, Sam, if you search for “passacaille” rather than “passacaglia” you’ll get more results.

[mr-s]

Hi Sam , i play the version by Alphonse Leduc Paris, i didnt play or know about Magistretti version…….

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

What isn’t clear in the urtext edition I have is whether the sections have repeats or not. They have doublebarlines, but no repeat symbols. However, I think the characteristic thing to do is to repeat each variation either as an echo or with (differing) ornamentation. The Tiny Beon has been the standard edition for years despite errors. I recall they were corrected somewhere, perhaps in a Journal article. I have the Magistretti and it is of interest, but I would get the original unless you are learning it for a competition.

[Mel Sandberg]

Good thing

[Han Hsieh]

Any one know which harp version was first published?

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Probably the Beon. Wait a minim, can you translate that into Americanese? You’re giving me the hemi-demi-semiquavers!

[barbara-brundage]

My own guess would be the Magistretti and that Beon used that as the basis for his/her version, but it’s hard to know, since there’s not much biographical info available for either of them these days.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Who was Tiny Beon?

[barbara-brundage]

The only information I’ve ever been able to find is that she was Belgian. I think Jane Weidensaul once told me Beon was female, and an orchestral harpist, but I sure wouldn’t swear to those last two details.

Anybody else know anything?

[paul-wren]

I have always wondered who Tiny was. I was told by my teacher that Tiny was a female. But that was it.

[paul-wren]

Also this might help to see the keyboard version.

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/50/IMSLP12247-Handel_-_Passacaglia__alt_.pdf

[barbara-brundage]

FWIW, some of the chords in that version are fuller than in the urtext editions I’ve looked at.

BTW, re Beon, although the Passacaille is her only transcription that’s still available/performed, I have some very old sheet music with five or six other Beon transcriptions (Mozart and such) listed, so she must have been fairly prolific in her day.

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