Handel: Suites For Keyboard

Georg Friedrich Händel wrote 20 suites for keyboard, of which Keith Jarret chose seven for this deep reading. While pianists in the know have long recognized their poetry, the composer’s prosaic oratorios tend to take center stage. Inevitably, the ghost of Bach lingers, and Jarrett summons it intuitively, tracing each narrative arc as a problem, reaction, and solution. As expected, the livelier Gigues and Allemandes find him buoyantly emoting, but the vocal quality he brings out in the Adagios is something to behold. Our expectations of the composer and his interpreter matter less the more we listen.