Suite No. 8 in F Minor

Handel chose a wistful, harmonically expressive “Prelude”, full of French rhythmic inflections, to warm up the player at the start of his Suite No. 8 in F Minor. He included fugues in all but two of the Eight Great Suites, but they’re much looser than Bach’s and required performers to play along with Handel’s elaborate game of smoke and mirrors—in which he gives the impression of busy fugal activity, without necessarily providing all the detail. That’s the style here, but Handel’s confident, majestic fugue in F Minor sounds impressive, built as it is on a powerful rising scale which sounds positively orchestral when it appears in big chords and striding octaves in the bass. Altogether, it’s a movement which conveys to listeners just how imaginatively finger-pleasing this music is. Like one of Bach’s three-part Inventions, the “Courante” offers the kind of simple imitation which less experienced players could get their fingers round.