Daria van den Bercken - Handel Suites for Keyboard

The debut album from award-winning Dutch pianist Daria van den Bercken is the Drive featured album of the week from 27 May.

Multiple award-winning Dutch pianist Daria van den Bercken has released her debut album on the Sony Classical label, which sees her champion the keyboard music of Handel.

Daria - who studied with the great Murray Perahia - has developed a reputation for performing in innovative and unusual spaces, including giving impromptu concerts in her home, playing suspended from a crane in South America, and being towed on a barge around the canals of Amsterdam. 

For the Handel Suites for Keyboard album, she decided to play a number of concerts in private homes, emphasising the fact that the music was initially not meant to be published; Handel wrote it mainly for his students. 

Through her mastery of Handel's Suites, Van den Bercken captures both the light joyfulness and the sadness of Handel's brilliant music.