I first made the acquaintance of Handel’s harpsichord music through the medium of guitar duet. “Just listen to this,” a friend said, handing me a record of the G Major Chaconne as arranged and performed by legendary husband and wife duo Alexandre Lagoya and Ida Presti. It was a revelation. Since then I’ve heard Handel’s so-called Eight Great Suites (1720), to which Danny Driver has added for this recording the aforementioned Chaconne as well as two additional suites in C Minor and E Minor, played on harpsichord and piano by such luminaries as Sviatoslav Richter and Andrei Gavrilov, Laurence Cummings and Richard Egarr. Those of a less completist bent included Murray Perahia and Keith Jarrett. 

All, I felt, had something individual to say. But the question remained: did Handel’s music benefit more from the overtone-laden sonority of the plucked harpsichord or the pedaled richness and dynamically-shaded clarity of the hammered piano? Frankly it depends on who’s driving (pardon the pun), and with Danny Driver at the wheel you’d swear they had been composed for the piano.

Handel’s suites show enormous variety, boasting variations on the French dance suite, the four-movement sonata da chiesa, improvisatory preludes, rigorous fugues and sets of variations. Driver’s thoughtful approach is likewise varied and authentic while taking full advantage of the modern piano. His extemporised arpeggiations and fluttering graces leap like a subtle electrical current from suite to suite, while, as the G Major Chaconne and the G Minor Passacaille attest, he is willing to use changes in tempo and volume to great dramatic effect. If one occasionally misses the harpsichord’s delicate colours, there is ample compensation in those moments of unrestrained tonal splendour.