Suite No. 7 in G Minor

Handel’s Suite No. 7 in G Minor is the most ostentatiously French of his Eight Great Suites of 1720. It begins with a massive “Ouverture,” which sounds like a keyboard arrangement of the magnificent royal overtures heard before Lully’s operas at the court of Louis XIV. A slow, pompous opening, full of dramatic gestures (and some tricky scale passages), leads seamlessly into a fast, furious fugue, whose pounding dotted (jerky) rhythms distract from the fact that there’s not much real imitative dialogue going on between the parts as in a real fugue. Classic Handelian sleight of hand. Modest allemande- and corrente-style movements lead to a poised, lilting “Sarabande” and a rattling, Italianate “Gigue.” But the finale is the real highlight of the suite—an expansive “Passacaille.” Handel writes 15 little variations over the chord sequence heard in the opening four bars. Generating increasingly virtuosic figuration, it provides a dazzling conclusion to the suite—and is actually rather easier to play than it sounds.