Folklore of the day: Handel’s Water Music Premieres – Three Times. On this date in 1717, George Frideric Handel introduced his ‘Water Musick,’ conducting about fifty players on one royal pleasure barge while the king listened from another as they plied the Thames upriver from near Whitehall and back. One of Handel’s challenges was to maintain a reasonable volume, since the distance between the boats varied. Although the composition was essentially a suite of dances, no dancing is known to have taken place during the elaborate river party. Another reason for this festivity was the hope of German-born King George I that appearing in public might help ingratiate him to his subjects. A Prussian legate who attended the event wrote: “Next to the king’s barge was that of the musicians who played on all kinds of instruments, trumpets, horns, hautboys, bassoons, German flutes, French flutes, violins, and basses. . . . His Majesty approved of it so greatly that he caused it to be repeated [twice]. . . . The number of barges and of boats filled with people desirous of hearing was beyond counting.”
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 08:12:44 +0000
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