Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV351 (1749)
Ouverture
Bourrée
“La Paix”:Largo alla Siciliana
“La Réjouissance”:Allegro
Menuet I & II
For many English music lovers over the years, the two finest composers around – between Purcell and Elgar – were Mendelssohn (ten visits altogether), together with his German compatriot Handel who, having passed the winter of 1707/8 in London (and before that a significant amount of time in Italy), arrived on these shores in the Autumn of 1712, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was followed in 1714 by his previous employer, the Elector of Hannover – soon to be King George I. Whilst his overriding fame in the English capital was as a composer of opera – later, when that appeal began to decline, of oratorio – he was well acquainted with state and royal occasions, notably the famous event along the River Thames on 17 July 1717, when “50 Instruments of all sorts, who play’d all the Way from Lambeth…….the finest Symphonies, compos’d express for this Occasion, by Mr. Hendel” – this being the Water Music, of course. Similarly, in London’s Green Park on 27 April 1749: the king by now was George II, who had devised and commissioned a spectacular fireworks display to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession – despite the strength of public opinion (conveniently overruled), which regarded the resulting Treaty as amounting to no less than a capitulation on the part of the government.
Nonetheless, this outrageously extravagant spectacle was reputedly attended by over 12,000 people. The celebrated composer was originally required to supply music for no fewer than
40 trumpets, 20 French horns, 16 hautboys, 16 bassoons, 8 pairs of kettledrums, 12 side drums, a proper number of flutes and fifes; with 100 cannon to go off singly at intervals, with the musick.
After much argument and negotiation (principally over perfectly reasonable concerns about balancing sixty brass instruments with the rest), Handel eventually agreed “24 oboes, 12 bassoons and a contrabassoon (originally serpent), nine natural trumpets, nine natural horns, three pairs of kettledrums, and side drums”. His irritation at many other arrangements for the great day was softened somewhat with the promise of a subsequent performance indoors, on 27 May at the Foundling Hospital – perhaps the favourite charity of this famously generous philanthropist. For this occasion, Handel was allowed to replace some of the wind instruments with strings – which version is the more often played these days.
© Alan George
