The reconstruction of the compositional chronology of Georg Friedrich Handel's repertoire for flute is extremely

complex. There are various reasons for this, stemming from two essential factors: on the one hand, the typical

tendency for much of Handel's music to transmigrate from one instrument to another and the consequent impossibility,

at times, of determining precisely which version of a particular piece is the original; on the other

hand, the proliferation, at a time when no copyright regulations existed, of diverse printed editions. Many of

these, unauthorised, generated different versions, errors or misinterpretations, which were possibly also passed

on over time.

For this CD recording, which features a substantial part of the complete corpus of the sonatas for recorder and

transverse flute, we compared the two earliest printed versions containing sonatas for solo instrument by Handel.

Both were published by the London publisher Walsh, although for a long time the first of the two editions was

attributed to the Amsterdam publisher Roger, but then, thanks to the studies of Terence Best and David Lasocki,

it turned out to be a 'pirate' publication by the same publisher Walsh (who probably had not yet obtained

Handel's permission to publish).