Geoffrey Thomas

Below are some comments about the performance of Handel’s Duels at the Handel House in Halle on September 28, 2008.

When we talk about your concert, we can’t help gushing. When you combine good music with such charm and knowledge, then you can be certain the public will buy it. I’ll say it again: it was an experience. Who else could manage to use classical music to bring tears of laughter to listeners?

Dorothea Kölhler

Director of the Halle Kammerchor Cantamus

Former Director of the Stadtsingechor Halle

The last and a very happy event was the Sunday Matinee with Geoffrey Thomas. He performed the “Handel’s Duels” play from his “Theater of Music”, a one man with a harpsichord and a clavichord show. Geoffrey talked about Handel’s life, impersonating various figures with rapidly changing costumes, and he would illustrate the events with musical pieces. The audience went delirious when he took on the roles of the Cuzzoni and Faustina, Handel’s two prima donnas, and their rivalry was aptly depicted in the Presto from the d-minor Suite. The subsequent Sarabande from the g-minor Suite was Geoffrey’s illustration of the Cuzzoni singing, and one suddenly understood that actually this dance piece was composed as an aria. The combination of lightness and humour with music made the performance a fitting end to an event that had given us concerts from some of the world’s greatest masters of the clavichord, and I don’t spread my praise loosely.

Michael Zapf

Former President of the German Clavichord Society

You brought us great pleasure with your Handel programm, many thanks once again.

Lothar Bemmen

President of the German Clavichord Society