Handel wrote a number of obbligato gamba parts with orchestral accompaniment, notably in the cantata Tra le fiamme, the oratorio La Resurrezione and the opera Giulio Cesare, but it is less obvious how he treated the instrument elsewhere as a solo instrument. One clue lies in an autograph manuscript of a violin sonata, where at the foot of the first page the composer writes a few bars of the opening an octave lower in the alto clef, and labels it ‘per la viola da gamba’. It is the feeling of the recording's main soloist that transcriptions like this were fairly common, and may be a reason why there isn’t more surviving solo music for the gamba from the early Georgian period in England including by Handel – the solo gamba very likely played existing music written for other instruments. Aziz uses here this hypothesis as a basis for this programme. As well the original sonata for gamba and continuo that Handel had left us, he includes several transcriptions which he hasmade of his other works, as well as pieces which are attributed to him such as the sonata in C major with obbligato harpsichord and one sonata from a recently unearthed collection called the Kassel Sonatas. © First Hand Records