Terence Best
Honorary Research Fellow

Terence Best is co-General Editor (with Professor Wolfgang Ruf, University of Halle-Wittenberg) of the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (HHA), the modern collected editon of the music of George Frideric Handel. His appointment in October 1998 marked the first recognition of a British scholar in this position. The HHA series commenced in 1955 and, at the present schedule of publication, should be complete in 2023. Terence Best has himself made a substantial contribution to the edition as a volume editor: he has fifteen volumes already to his credit, equalling the achievement of Alfred Dürr in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. His practical experience as a keyboard performer initially led his editorial interests towards Handel's instrumental music: an important recent publication has been the critical commentary covering the whole of Handel's keyboard music (HHA Serie IV Band 7), the music for which occupies four volumes of the edition, all of which have been produced or revised under his personal editorship. Now that the publication of Handel's instrumental music is complete, Terence Best is particularly involved in the editions of the Italian operas, where his professional skills as a linguist provide a necessary complement to his musical experience. (He has also been responsible for the English translations of German prefaces to HHA volumes.)

His work as an editor has been complemented by the publication of many articles and book chapters relating to Handel's instrumental music and Italian operas, and he is the book editor of Handel Collections and their History (Oxford University Press, 1993). He contributed two chapters, on Handel's keyboard music and Handel's use of the Italian language, to the Cambridge Companion to Handel (Cambridge, 1997). He is a founder member of the Council of the Handel Institute and a vice-president of the Händelgesellschaft.

HHA Volumes edited by Terence Best

Serie II, Band 9.1 Radamisto I, 1997

Serie II, Band 9.2 Radamisto II, 2000

Serie II, Band 15 Tamerlano 1996

Serie II, Band 41 Deidamia 2001

Serie IV, Band 1 Klavierwerke I (revised edition) 1993

Serie IV, Band 2 Organ Concertos op 4 (revised edition) 2001

Serie IV, Band 3 Sonaten für Flöte und b.c. (revised edition) 1995

Serie IV, Band 4 Violinsonaten (revised edition) 2001

Serie IV, Band 5 Klavierwerke II (revised edition) 1999

Serie IV, Band 6 Klavierwerke III 1970

Serie IV, Band 7 Keyboard Works, Critical Report 2000

Serie IV, Band 15 Sechs Instrumentalwerke 1979

Serie IV, Band 17 Klavierwerke IV 1975

Serie IV, Band 18 Neun Sonaten (solo instr., b.c.) 1982

Serie IV, Band 19 Einzeln Überleiferte Instrumentalwerke II 1988

In preparation:

Serie II, Band 20 Riccardo Primo, Re d'Inghilterra

Serie II, Band 39 Serse (revised edition)

Recent conference papers include:

'Radamisto II: the remaking of a libretto', American Handel Society Conference, May 2001

'Chrysander's Italian Texts', Wissenschaftliche Konferenz, University of Halle-Wittenberg, June 2001