Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, 2015

Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, 2015

November 2, 2015. Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.  We’re publishing an essay by Joseph DuBose about what is probably the most popular orchestral music in all of George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel’s output.  We illustrate it with the 1972 recordings made by Neville Marriner with his Academy of St Martin in the Fields.  

 

On July 17, 1717, King George I conducted a lavish affair upon the Thames River. As one rumor goes, it was an effort to outdo his own son, Prince George II, who was enjoying the limelight of British social circles. At eight o’clock that night, the King and his entourage boarded a royal barge at Whitehall Place and sailed up the Thames to Chelsea. An accompanying barge, provided by the City of London, held some fifty instrumentalists who performed music by Handel for the King’s entertainment. A great number of Londoners came out to witness the incredible spectacle—so many, in fact, that the Daily Courant newspaper reported there was “so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover'd.”

 

Another rumor surrounding the event suggests that Handel’s music for the event was composed as a means to regain the King’s good graces. Before inheriting the British throne, George, as the Elector of Hanover, had employed Handel as Kapellmeister beginning in 1710. Yet, two years later, Handel decided to relocate to England where he received a yearly salary from Queen Anne. Handel’s abrupt departure from Germany purportedly caused some animosity between him and his employer. Once George ascended the British throne, Handel found himself suddenly in the position of needing to regain the King's favor. Supposedly, Handel was apprehensive in approaching King George, but saw the King's party as the perfect opportunity. On the other hand, an equally plausible explanation is both men knew that George would soon be King of Great Britain, and that he gave Handel his permission to venture on ahead of him to London. Regardless, the king was so impressed with the music that he ordered it repeated three times by the time he returned to Whitehall from Chelsea, suggesting that the musicians played continuously from 8 p.m. until well after midnight (with the exception of a break while King George I went ashore at Chelsea).

 

Though Handel’s music for the event was such a great success, there exists no reliable documentation that the music known today as Water Music was, in fact, the exact music performed on that occasion. While it is known that several of the numbers were quite popular in London, none of the music was initially published. Three movements—two minuets and the overture—appeared in 1720 and 1725, respectively. John Walsh published an eleven movement edition in 1733, and later followed up with an expanded nineteen movement arrangement for harpsichord. The first complete edition did not appear until 1788 and was published after extensive research by Samuel Arnold. This edition has become the authoritative Water Music, and was the basis for Friedrich Chrysander’s Gesellschaft edition published in 1886. Yet, despite an authoritative edition, some doubt remains even today around the exact ordering of the movements. Generally, however, Handel’s Water Music is arranged into three separate suites, HWV 348-50, based on the character and instrumentation of the movements. The first suite, by the far longest, contains nine movements in the keys of F major and D minor, and features horns with an orchestra of oboes, bassoon, and strings. The middle suite, in D major, adds trumpets; while the third, in G major, is more delicately scored with flutes. (Continue reading here)

Water Music Suite No. 1 in F major (here)

The first suite begins with a stately overture scored for the full ensemble except horns. The slow, majestic opening section of the overture is built entirely from a simple figure of three sixteenth notes preceding a quarter note. Following a close on the dominant, Handel then launches into the faster-paced main body of the movement. Two solo violins initiate a fugal exposition, and are joined by the entire ensemble as the continuo takes up the subject. Handel’s fugal movements were typically less strict than those by Bach, and this movement is no exception as it is, strictly speaking, a fugato. Episodes featuring the three soloists, with minimal interjections from the ensemble, separate tutti passages in which the fugue subject is generally confined to the continuo. Two endings are provided for the movement—one bringing it to a close on the tonic and indicating a repeat of the fugato, while the other concludes on a dramatic half cadence and leads directly on into the following Adagio e staccato, Handel’s own indication for the second movement. The Adagio is in the key of the relative minor and features a doleful tune allotted to the oboe against a backdrop of chords provided by the ensemble. Its later half is somewhat more active as the ensemble engages in a bit of imitative counterpoint before the soloist reenters. Typical of a Baroque era, the movement closes with a Phrygian half cadence, preparing for the return of the tonic key.

 

The pomp of the opening movement returns in the following joyful Allegro, which by means of a da capo repeat, frames a minor key Andante. The Allegro is built around the fanfare-like figures introduced by the pair of horns, and echoed by the rest of the ensemble. Indeed, the horns are the real feature of the movement, and engage in a delightful call-and-response with the orchestra. Even in the tutti passages, they lead the ensemble with jubilant syncopations instead of being relegated to mere harmony notes. Owing to their nature of tone production, the horns are understandably omitted from the central D minor Andante. Oboes and bassoons open the section, after which the strings take up their melody. However, it is the former group of instruments that carry much of the melodic burden, as the strings periodically fall silent.

 

The horns are featured again in the following quaint Minuet. The outer sections, in F major, feature a charming melody given principally to the first violins and oboe. However, as each of its two repeated sections come to close, Handel softly echoes their final strains with the two horns unaccompanied, adding a bit of rhythmic curiosity as their phrases are of irregular length. The middle portion of the Minuet maintains a similar character, but ventures once again into the key of the relative minor. This movement and another minuet frame an Air which is perhaps the most well-known movement of the first suite, and one of the most well-known in the entire Water Music. Delightfully simple in its approach, the melody is stated twice, besides each of its halves being repeated. On its first appearance, the melody, heard in the first violin and oboe, is largely unadorned, except for brief moments of imitative counterpoint in the inner parts. Only its second appearance, the melody is partially reharmonized and the inner parts lose some of their individual character. Against the melody now appears a descant allotted to the two horns. Like the previous minuet, the second makes prominent use of the horns. This time, however, it is the horns that lead the movement as they present its opening melody with canonical imitations. The melody is then repeated by the full ensemble, while the trio section ventures once again into the key of the tonic minor.

 

The last three movements omit the horns altogether. The first is a short bourée which is to be performed three times. Violins lead the dance and then hand off the melody to the oboes on its first repetition. The final time it is performed, both violins and oboes state the melody. The penultimate movement is a hornpipe (though not the famous D major hornpipe), a dance that likely originated on English sailing vessels in the 16th century. Likewise brief, it is followed by a more contrapuntal movement in D minor, contrasting the sonorities of oboes and bassoons against strings. It is lengthy compared to the movements that precede it, but its key provides an effective transition into the second of the Water Music suites.

 

Water Music Suite No. 2 in D major (here)

 In the brilliant and regal key of D major, trumpets lead the joyous opening movement with fanfares answered by vigorous descending scales in the strings. Alongside these fanfares, Handel introduces a second melodic idea in stately dotted rhythms, imparting to the piece the air of a French overture. These dotted rhythms ultimately give way to virtuosic sixteenths in the trumpets and horns as the piece approaches its majestic ending. Yet, despite the grand chords of the final cadence, the overture concludes with a few measures in Adagio tempo and on a half cadence in the key of the relative minor.

 

The following movement is the famous Hornpipe, one of the most recognizable and beloved of Handel's instrumental works. Oboes and strings, supported by the continuo, lead off with the movement's famous melody before handing it off to the trumpets and horns, and setting in motion a delightful conversation amongst the three groups of instruments. The dance’s later half ventures into the key of B minor and develops out of the sequential repeated note figure and amusing syncopations of the theme.

 

The following movement, generally described as a Minuet, is a stately affair in triple time. Its opening section grows in intensity with repeated note figures that climb up to the dominant. Building off of this idea, the latter half is somewhat more energetic, culminating with a swaying rhythmic figure in its final measures. Next follows a slow movement which Handel has marked Lentemente. Beginning with a half-measure pickup, the music takes great pleasure in its lazy dotted quarter-eighth-quarter rhythm. The opening section employs the full ensemble, allowing the trumpets and horns to take on a lyrical character. On the other hand, the latter half omits those two pairs of instruments, and briefly juxtaposes the oboes and bassoons against the strings. Lastly, an Air, in the quick tempo of the bourrée and indicated to be performed three times, closes the second suite. Simply scored for the entire ensemble and in binary form, the brief first section adopts stately quarter and half notes, while the latter indulges in a more lively dactylic rhythm.

 

Water Music Suite No. 3 in G major (here)

Unlike the first two suites, the lightly scored third contains no overture or any kind of through-composed movements at all. Instead, it is a small collection of dances. Leading the suite is a slow, triple time movement, which, though not so titled by Handel, exhibits the characteristic rhythms of the sarabande. Featuring a transverse flute (the forerunner of the modern flute), the movement never loses its relaxed, graceful poise. Next follows a spirited rigaudon, a dance similar to the bourrée. Omitting the flute, it calls for oboes to double the violins and a bassoon the continuo line. In contrast to the previous movement, it also embodies a full-fledged ternary design. The outer sections, in the brilliant tonic key, is contrasted by a second dance in G minor. Despite their different keys, Handel connects the two dances with a common motif—a turn-like figure that is heard frequently in the G major melody and reappears as part of the continuo during the minor key dance.

 

The G minor tonality and ternary form is adopted again for the succeeding pair of minuets. The first is very lightly scored in only three parts for strings and continuo. This dance, by means of a da capo repeat, frames the lengthier second dance which calls for the brilliant tone of a piccolo, or possibly a recorder, to present its melody. Lastly, a pair of gigues close out the suite. The first is in G minor and also employs the piccolo; the second is in G major. Though separate movements, they each employ similar rhythms and function well as another ternary design, with a statement of the latter of G major dance preceding the minor key one. The thicker harmonic textures of the latter dance likewise effectively frames the more delicately scored first, as well as providing a vigorous close to the suite.

 

Music for the Royal Fireworks (here)

Thirty-two years later, Handel again composed music for a lavish outdoor, this time for King George II. The festivities, which took place on April 27, 1749, were an extravagant jubilee in celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of Austrian Succession. In Green Park in London, an elaborately constructed "machine," 410 feet wide and 114 feet high, was built from which fireworks were to erupt. The entire event caused much excitement in the British capital. One observer reported that, “For a week before, the town was like a country fair, the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom.”

 

There was also much anticipation, as well as considerable tension, surrounding Handel’s music for the event. King George II insisted on only “martial” instruments—i.e., no strings. Consenting to monarch’s demands, Handel then requested a hundred players to ensure that the music could be heard over all the festivities. This demand apparently led to some hostility between the composer and the organizers of the event until a “smaller” ensemble of 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 horns, 9 trumpets, 3 pairs of kettledrums, and an unknown number of side drums was settled upon, a still gargantuan orchestra by Baroque standards. Furthermore, to help quell the anxious excitement of the London public, 12,000 tickets were sold to a rehearsal of Handel’s music, which was to conclude with a 101 cannon salute. However, this only caused further problems by creating a three-hour traffic jam on the London Bridge, the only means of reaching the area south of the Thames. 

 

Ironically, once the much-anticipated event finally arrived, it was thwarted by none other than Mother Nature. The night of the jubilee was rainy causing the displays to either fizzle or fail to ignite. Yet, it did manage to still create quite a spectacle. During the fireworks display, the “machine” itself burst into flames and burned to the ground! With such excitement, it is perhaps no wonder that no mention was made of Handel’s music. However, there is no doubt that it met with the same success as his earlier Water Music. Handel, also, was able to later perform the music as he originally intended it. The following month, he gave a performance of the Music for the Royal Fireworks, rescored to include strings, in a benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital.

 

The Music for the Royal Fireworks opens with all the appropriate pomp and splendor fashioned into a French overture in the brilliant and regal key of D major. A slow introduction with stately dotted rhythms precedes a faster-paced and more contrapuntal Allegro, and ultimately comes to a close with a Lentement section in F-sharp minor. Next follows a lively Bourrée, indicated to be performed twice. Handel then follows with two movements which he gave descriptive titles suitable to the event. The first is a Largo alla Siciliana entitled La paix (The Peace), a relaxed movement in compound time. The second, La réjouissance (The Rejoicing) is a joyful Allegro. Handel also instructed for this movement to be performed three times—the first time by trumpets and strings; the second, by horns and woodwinds; and the third, by the entire ensemble. In a similar manner, the concluding Minuet is to be performed as well, yet alternating with a more delicately scored “trio” scored for the ensemble sans brass, and brings the entire piece to a jubilant and majestic close.