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Handel’s Chaconne in G major survives in five distinct versions, of which the earliest seems to date from Handel’s period in Hamburg (1703–06). It does not survive in orchestral score, but the keyboard part of the first variation is marked ‘Tutti’, and has a figured bass, while the last is marked ‘Tutti Stromenti’; Paul Nicholson has realized them for orchestra, as well as adding orchestral parts to the simple variation that comes immediately after the central G minor section. The Chaconne in G major circulated in England as a solo keyboard piece, and was twice published in that form, but Handel seems to have continued to use it as a concerto on occasion, for among his autographs in the Fitzwilliam Museum is a different version of the opening orchestral ritornello, apparently written around 1739.

from notes by Peter Holman © 1994