HANDEL'S HARPSICHORD PIECES
Played by BERNHARD ORD
WHEN Handel's first book of Harpsichord pieces (a set of eight Suites) appeared, in 1720, his thirty-sixth year, he was music-master to the Princesses Anne and Caroline, George II's daughters. A second set of eight was published, so far as we know without his approval, thirteen years after, and a volume of short movements, still later. There are besides six fugues, and a collection of early pieces, but these last have little more than historical interest. The best known piece in all these series is no doubt the air and variations which generations have called ' The Harmonious Blacksmith,' believing implicitly the old tale of their inspiration by the ringing of hammer on anvil in the smithy near London. The modern historian, caring nought for the picturesque or kindly traditions which his hunting after soulless truth may trample down and ruin, would have us call the story spurious, as though its truth or untruth mattered now, or could affect the bright ring of the music. We know, indeed, but little of the origin of most of the pieces, nor can anyone be sure why their simplicity-it is at times an almost bald simplicity-is so much at variance with all that we have heard of Handel's brilliance as a player of the harpsichord and of the organ. It may bo that, as he played them himself, he relied a great deal on extempore embellishment of their simple outlines, giving them new life and an interest which is not always present in the printed versions as they have come down to us. But the best of the pieces on which Mr. Bemhard Ord will draw for his programmes this week, have a freshness and charm, stateliness sometimes, and occasionally strength, which inevitably recall the great Handel and his robust sanity.