Which edition of the Handel Concerto do you play?

[unknown-user]

With so many editions of the Handel Concerto in B-Flat it’s hard to know which one to choose. Which of the following editions of the Handel do you play and why?

Angerer
Barenreiter
Eulenburg
Grandjany
Hurst
Lawrence
LeDentu
Lenzewski
McDonald
Pasveer
Rees-Rohrbacher
Salzedo
Van Campen

[tony-morosco]

I play the LeDentu edition. Mainly because I am currently without a pedal harp and of all the editions playable on a lever harp this one stays truest in my estimation in the melody with necessary simplification only in the accompaniment.

[rosalind-beck]

I started out with the Salzedo edition, but a former music director of our orchestra advised against playing lengthy cadenzas because they are not appropriate to the Baroque performance practice; so, I considerably abridged the Salzedo cadenza.

Later, I

[mark-andersen]

I also play from the Grandjany edition feeling that it serves the concerto better than the rest. I have several students who have used this edition as well with great success.

[alexander-rider]

I love the Grandjany version, but it is technically much harder, and

[erin-wood]

I learned the Grandjany version in high school.

[unknown-user]

If you’re playing the Handel on a big harp, I don’t see any reason not to play a full-blown creative cadenza. I think audiences need and probably expect it. I don’t like the idea of switching back and forth between Grandjany and Salzedo editions. I would only be concerned with which edition I used if I were playing with an “original instruments” type group.

[carl-swanson]

I learned the Grandjany version, but later on made some changes, particularly to the ornaments.

[unknown-user]

i played M.Grandjany version, but for cadenza, first played Grandjany, second time played another cadenza.

[unknown-user]

I learned the Salzedo version first. And because of the difficult nature of the piece, I altered only a few passages in the first movement. I had played it on several Marine Band tours and just simply couldn’t re-work it. Salzedo had a series of sevenths at the end of the first movement which was not stylistic, Grandjany’s was more stylistic, but now I use a climbing octave in the bass line that makes sense. Second movement I use Lawrence but fleshed out a lot of the chords. Seemed too thin for my taste. As for the cadenza, it depends entirely on where you are playing the work. When I did it twice in Boston with the H/H Society, Tommy Dunn didn’t want a lot, just an embellishment and resolution. The Salzedo cadenza isn’t good at all, it’s even in the wrong place, would never play it. I would play the Grandjany in almost every other venue, but would cut some of it. In both the Grandjany and Salzedo, the ornaments need to be fixed. My third movement is the Lawrence. I love this piece immensely, it’s been one of my standards for years. I was lucky enough that one of the performances in Symphony Hall was in celebration of Handel’s 300 birthday! It was performed in it’s original setting of “Alexander”s Feast”.

[unknown-user]

It depends on how authentic you want to be. If I remember correctly the original score is available from Dover. The Le Dentu edition appears to be very close to the original.

The Grandjany and Salzedo may have their own beauty, but they’re not very true to the original.

[unknown-user]

If you play it true to the original, do you only play the melody and bass line as given? We were expected by the composer to flesh it out, so we have to choose the style we want to do it in, don’t we, and be true to that? That’s why I don’t like mixing editions, because you are shifting esthetic approaches. The Salzedo cadenza is very 1945ish, and is a wonderful document of that style-period. If or when I ever finish it, I hope people will take to my edition. I am finding different harmonies quite possible, and have a cadenza already that is two pages, longer than a diddle up and down, and shorter than the Salzedo or Grandjany. Grandjany’s edition is very early 20th c. French in esthetic, and is a wonderful approach in that sense. If you want to authentic ornamentation, then you have to use another edition or do your own, it seems to me. It’s really very difficult to work out. As much as I love the piece, I have never been able to finish learning the second movement, because I just can’t hold the fragments together-it lacks sufficient continuity, or I just don’t have enough energy to sustain it.

[helen-rudd]

Does anyone know where I can get the Mcdonald version?
Helen

[mr-s]

I

[angela-madjarova]

There is an

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