Sunday, December 30, 2018

George Frederick Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, a date that will see celebrations and festivities around the globe.  These festivities call for top shelf music, and you don't get much more top shelf than this.  King George II commissioned Handel to write this in celebration of the end of the war of Austrian Succession in 1748.  I think that it's pretty funny that the Duke of Montague (who organized the fireworks) told Handel that the King hoped that there would be "no fiddles" - and so Handel scored the piece only for brass.  Handel later re-scored the piece for full orchestra.

The rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens caused a three hour traffic jam as carriages tried to cross London Bridge to get to the event.

May your New Year be joyous.

3 comments:

  1. LSPDecember 30, 2018 at 10:33 PM

    love.

    ReplyDelete
  2. libertymanDecember 31, 2018 at 3:28 PM

    Wonderful music, and with period instruments! It seems rare to me to see a woman tympanist by the way. Note the beaters as well. And look! A rope tension snare drum to lead things off.
    This is one of my favorite pieces, and I wish we would play it at our graduation ceremonies as part of it.
    Very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  3. waepnedmannJanuary 1, 2019 at 9:51 PM

    This is one of my favorite works.
    I find that I am prompted to play it during this time of year.
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Remember your manners when you post. Anonymous comments are not allowed because of the plague of spam comments.