Georg Friedrich Haendel (1685-1759)
Préludes et Toccatas, extrait du Manuscrit de Bergame (I-BGI Ms XIV 8751 H.1)

Fernando de Luca, clavecin

The manuscript Ms XIV 8751 H.1 came to the Library of the Civico Istituto Musicale Gaetano Donizetti in 1916. It consists of 92 pages entirely in the hand of William Babell, who was Händel’s principal copyist from c.1711 until his death in 1723. While none of the movements in this volume is attributed to any composer, internal evidence indicates that most, if not all of the music, was composed by or adapted from George Frideric Händel. If so, this volume represents the most important addition to the corpus of Händel’s keyboard works since the publication of the Aylesford manuscripts in 1928.