Page 90 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

88 AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE
Public music and
concert-going
London was the first city to
establish public concerts with
paying audiences. The trend
began around 1672, when the
violinist and composer John
Banister organized a paying
concert in his own house. By
the time Handel arrived in
London, there were purpose-
built venues for chamber
music concerts. In addition,
theatres in Drury Lane and
the Haymarket offered Italian
and, later, English opera to
London’s beau monde.
From around 1740, pleasure
gardens sprang up across the
capital, most famously in
Vauxhall. Here visitors
would stroll, dine, and be
entertained by live music from
wind bands and orchestras.
A rehearsal of Handel’s Music
for the Royal Fireworks in
Vauxhall Gardens, in 1749,
attracted some 12,000 people,
each paying two shillings
and sixpence, and causing
a three-hour traffic jam on
London Bridge.
The band plays music from
an illuminated bandstand in
London’s Vauxhall Gardens, UK,
while visitors stroll and dance
in the open air.
US_084-089_Handel_Water_Music.indd 88
director. He traveled to Europe
to engage the finest orchestral
musicians and the most celebrated
singers, including the Italian
castrato Senesino, and the
soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. He saw men and women
Handel understood the
where others have seen only
audience’s continual hunger for historical-mythical busts.
novelty. When London audiences Paul Henry Lang
became used to these artists, Music critic
he brought in another soprano,
Faustina Bordoni, who built a rival
fan base among the audience,
reinvigorating interest in the opera
for a few more seasons. The high
fees paid to such luminaries may
have been part of the reason that was unusual at the time. He also
the company went out of business understood the importance of
in 1728 with debts of around spectacle, and a number of his
£20,000 (over $5.5 million today). operas required elaborate stage
machinery. In Alcina, which was
Master of stagecraft written for the new opera house
Handel wrote a series of 13 operas at Covent Garden, the stage
for the Royal Academy of Music, directions include “with lightning
which had 235 performances in his and thunder, the mountain
lifetime. Masterpieces in the Italian crumbles, revealing Alcina’s
style, they included Giulio Cesare delightful palace.” Such stage
in Egitto (“Julius Caesar in Egypt”, effects attracted audiences just
1724) and Alcina (1735). Although as much as the music.
he used the operatic conventions of
the day—recitatives and arias—to A new direction
unfold the narrative, he gave the When Italian opera went out
operas a dramatic structure that of fashion in London after the
extraordinary success in 1728
of John Gay’s The Beggar’s
Opera, which satirized the form,
Handel used his skills to create
and popularize oratorios in English.
Starting with Deborah (1733),
Handel understands these thrillingly dramatic works for
effect better than solo singers, chorus, and orchestra
any of us—when he told biblical stories with English-
chooses, he strikes like language librettos, but were
a thunderbolt. performed unstaged in theatres. To
Wolfgang Amadeus some extent influenced by operatic
Mozart traditions, and even Greek tragedy,
Handel developed a directness of
style and a new kind of robustness
that appealed to British audiences.
The public flocked to hear works
such as Messiah (1742), Samson
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