Handel’s brooding Sarabande suddenly reached a huge new audience in 2002 as an integral part of the Levi’s ‘Freedom To Move’ advertisement campaign for their new “engineered” jeans. The TV adverts suggested that people wearing said apparel would find themselves able to run through walls, up trees and even directly into the stratosphere. A few of us remained rightly sceptical. But let’s get back to Handel, who was not known for running anywhere fast, except perhaps towards the next available hog roast ...
This stately music has a tremendous, dark gravitas which makes it a great piece to play on the organ. In this performance I use contrasting sounds on the manuals, culminating in a burst of Full Organ right at the end.
There are some great recordings of this piece on different organs, and on other instruments, at an amazing variety of speeds. It's remarkable that this wonderful music can "handle" (sorry!) so many different interpretations so successfully. I certainly used to play it faster and louder, but I've settled on this stately speed, and with registering it as more or less one continuous crescendo leading up to Full Organ. At least, for now ...
Played by Paul Broadhurst on the historic "Father" Henry Willis organ of Christ Church, Birkenhead, UK.
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