Organ concertos, Op. 7 (Handel)

[1] A fine and delicate touch, a volant finger, and a ready delivery of passages the most difficult, are the praise of inferior artists: they were not noticed in Handel, whose excellencies were of a far superior kind; and his amazing command of the instrument, the fullness of his harmony, the grandeur and dignity of his style, the copiousness of his imagination, and the fertility of his invention were qualities that absorbed every inferior attainment.

When he gave a concerto, his method in general was to introduce it with a voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying the appearance of great simplicity.

It is also reported by contemporaries that Handel would often play a slow and quiet voluntary for organ solo as a prelude to his concertos.

7, No.4 with the ad libitum slow movement provided by the sarabande and variations on La Folia from Handel's Suite in D minor for harpsichord HWV 437.

[5][6] Two modern performing editions of the concertos by the organists and musicologists Peter Williams and Ton Koopman provide missing movements and give suggestions for the ad libitum passages, possibly too earthbound according to some commentators.