HANDEL: Sonatas for two violins and continuo,...

HANDEL: Sonatas for two violins and continuo, Opus 5. London Baroque. Harmonia Mundi HMC 901389. It is not known whether Handel himself arranged the Opus 5 sonatas partially or completely, or whether they are the work of a hack. At any rate, the results are hardly hack work. The music, taken chiefly from earlier Handel anthems and oratorios, is suited so perfectly to the trio-sonata idiom that one would never guess its origins elsewhere. The playing, by the period-instrument chamber group London Baroque, is of a piece with the music: effortless, refined, fluid.