Klavierwerke II: Suites de Pièces pour le Clavecin: Zweite Sammlung von 1733, HWV 434–442, and: Klavierwerke I–IV: Die acht großen Suiten, erste Sammlung von 1720; Suites de Pièces pour Clavecin, zweite Sammlung von 1733; Einzelne Suiten und Stücke, erste Folge; Einzelne Suiten und Stücke, zweite Folge (review)

Editing George Frideric Handel's keyboard music is not for the faint of heart. The editor of this repertory faces a number of formidable obstacles not typically encountered in the other works of Handel, nor for that matter in the music of almost every other baroque composer. The crux of the problem lies in the lack of reliable sources, as the editor of this volume, Terence Best, explains in the preface to the revised second volume of Handel's keyboard suites (p. xxvi):

For most of Handel's works it is possible to speak of primary sources (usually autographs), and secondary sources (copies and editions); but we cannot do so for the present volume, because so few autographs have survived. The sources we have are all in effect secondary, so for each individual movement it is not possible to select a principal source which has greater authority than the others....

Best's assessment of the difficulties in arriving at a satisfactory text is made even more specific in the separately published critical commentary in English to accompany all four volumes of Handel's harpsichord pieces ( Klavierwerke) published in the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe(vol. 1: Erste Sammlung von 1720: Die acht großen Suiten, HWV 426–433, ed. Rudolf Steglich; rev. ed., Terence Best [ser. 4, vol. 1 (1955; 1993)]; vol. 2: here under review; vol. 3: Einzelne Suiten und Stücke, ed. Best [ser. 4, vol. 6 (1970)]; vol. 4: Einzelne Suite und Stücke, zweite Folge, ed. Best [ser. 4, vol. 17 (1975)]). He tells us that autographs have survived for only about a quarter of Handel's keyboard compositions, and none date before 1712, a period in which Handel wrote a large body of keyboard music. The remaining sources are either contemporary copies or printed editions.

The latter materials, however, are notoriously unreliable. For example, the edition of a large collection of Handel's keyboard music ( Pièces à un & deux clavecins) published in Amsterdam by Jeanne Roger (but probably supervised by John Walsh) at some point between 1719 and 1721 was so full of errors that Handel felt compelled to produce an edition of his own ( Suites de pièces pour le clavecin, premier volume). This was the set of eight suites published "for the Author" by John Cluer in 1720. Handel was probably referring to the Roger edition when he wrote in the preface to this edition why it was necessary to offer this corrected text: "I have been...