Page 89 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

BAROQUE 1600–1750 87

See also: Gabrieli’s Sonata pian’ e forte 55 ■ Euridice 62–63 ■ The Four Seasons 92–97 ■ The Magic Flute 134–137 ■
Elijah 170–173 ■ La traviata 174–175 ■ The Ring Cycle 180–187 ■ Tosca 194–197

Handel presents Water Music to very different from the hunting founded a century later) under
George I in a painting by the Belgian horns familiar to English audiences. a charter from the King. It was a
artist Edouard Hamman. According to Along with bassoons and trumpets, commercial venture, formed as
newspaper reports, the whole river was these helped the music carry in a joint-stock corporation, with
filled with small boats and barges.
the open air. the aim of commissioning and
Essentially, Water Music is a performing new Italian operas in
In 1717, George I asked Handel blend of popular European styles. Britain. Handel was one of its three
to compose the music for a barge It starts with an overture in the composers as well as its musical ❯❯
trip down the Thames. The music uneven rhythms of the French style,
needed to be sensational: the incorporates dances that were
King wanted to make a big public fashionable across Europe at the
statement to draw attention away time, and includes the most English
from his son, the Prince of Wales, of music—the hornpipe—which
who was forming an opposing became the signature tune of
political faction. Handel had to the work. I should be sorry if I only
balance a desire for novelty with entertained them. I wish to
the need for broad popular appeal. Opera in London make them better.
While a concert in a barge with In 1719, the Duke of Chandos and George Frideric Handel
some 50 performers was a novelty his friends, taking advantage of
in itself, Handel added to the the growing interest in opera in
occasion by importing Bohemian England, inaugurated the Royal
horn players, whose elegant Academy of Music (unrelated to
fanfares would have sounded the conservatoire of the same name

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