Handel’s Music for Royal Occasions7 February – 18 May 2014

By George!

Image on cover: Detail from A perspective view of the building for the fireworks in the Green Park. Robert Sayer, 1749 © The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

‘The main quality a composer must have in writing for royal occasions is a sense of theatre. When Handel wrote his magnificent set of four anthems for the coronation of George II in 1727,

he had already written twenty operas and was an experienced man of the theatre who could set a mood in a few seconds, paint a drama, thrill an audience. Zadok the Priest, with its

throbbing suspense-building introduction and shattering choral entry, does all of that and more in the space of just six minutes. There are other messages in the Handel Coronation Anthems too.

The music of all of them is confident and positive: the legitimacy of the Hanoverian monarchy, which Handel would have been eager to assert on the public stage of a great event, is left in

no doubt. Handel was one of the two composers who, for me, best evoked the idea of kingship and pageantry in music – the other was William Walton. Crown Imperial and Henry V

created the whole royal sound world for the twentieth century.’

John Rutter (December, 2013)

John Rutter’s specially commissioned setting of Psalm 150 was performed at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee thanksgiving service in St Paul’s Cathedral in 2002. In 2011 he wrote a new anthem, “This is the day which the Lord hath made”, for the wedding ceremony of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey.

Handel composed music for a wide range of occasions and patrons and contributed music to royal and State events for three British monarchs. Some of his earliest works with English text were performed before Queen Anne in 1713, only two years after Handel had settled in London. Handel used his German connections to his advantage when George I ascended the throne in 1714, and benefited from Hanoverian royal patronage all his life. As well as composing for State occasions, he taught the royal princesses, writing short pieces for them, although he was never formally appointed as a court musician. The Coronation Anthems composed for George II in 1727 are perhaps the best known and most popular of Handel’s works for royal events; the four anthems include Zadok the Priest, which has been performed at every British coronation since then. Other works for royal occasions include the Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Handel’s last composition for a royal occasion was the anthem The ways of Zion do mourn, for the funeral of Queen Caroline in 1737.

Handel’s Music for Royal Occasions

Handel. Mezzotint by Charles Turner (1773-1857) after Bartholomew Dandridge (1691-ca 1754) © Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

THE

MUSEUM FOUNDLING

40 Brunswick SquareLondon WC1N 1AZ

For more information:www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Handel was employed as the court composer (Kapellmeister) to the Elector of Hanover in June 1710, but spent much of his time in London, where he composed the birthday ode Eternal source of light divine for Queen Anne. On the death of the Queen in 1714 the Elector, although only 52nd in line to the British throne, succeeded to the title; under the Act of Succession which prohibited the monarch from being a Catholic, he was the next in line to the throne. The new King, George I, travelled to London for his British coronation, but he maintained a German-speaking court which gave Handel an advantage over many of his fellow musicians in London. Only days after his arrival, the King attended the Chapel Royal and heard Handel’s Te Deum, and Handel maintained a good relationship with his former employer.

Hanover to London

Queen Anne, ca 1710© The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

The Nuptials of her Royal Highness the Princess Royal with the Prince of Orange, was perform’d on Thursday last [14 March] … The Lord Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapel, and the Lord Bishop of Winchester, Clerk of the Closet, stood before the Communion-table with Prayer-Books in their Hands; and after the Organ had play’d some time, his Highness the Prince of Orange led the Princess Royal to the Rails of the Altar, and kneel’d down, and then the Lord Bishop of London perform’d the Service; after which the Bride and Bridegroom arose, and retir’d to their Places, whilst a fine Anthem, compos’d by Mr. Handell, was perform’d by a great Number of Voices and Instruments. … We are inform’d that their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange will be at the Serenata this Evening, at the King’s Theatre in the Hay Market.

16 March 1734 The Daily Advertiser

Nuptia ceremoniales inter Annam, Mag; Brit; Principissam Regalem et Gugielum Principem Aransionensem. J. Rigaud: 1734. © City of London, London Metropolitan Archives

Handel’s Water Music is a suite for orchestra composed for a party held on the River Thames for the King in 1717. Water parties were a relatively frequent event in this period – there are six royal water parties documented in 1715 alone – and could be used by the monarch to show himself to his people without too much formality. Handel’s suite of twenty-two pieces proved so agreeable to the King that he requested that it be played three times during the evening. The King was in one barge and the orchestra in another, accompanied by further boats with members of the Court and guests.

Water Music

Londres. ca 1780© The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

As a foreigner, Handel was not entitled to hold a court position, and he was appointed ‘Composer to the Chapel Royal’ with a pension rather than a salary, composing only for significant events. One duty which Handel did undertake, and for which he was paid £200 per annum, was teaching music to the royal princesses, Anne, Amelia, Carolina and Louisa. Anne, the Princess Royal, was a supporter of Handel and apparently the most musically talented: it is recorded that Handel once said ‘nothing on earth could induce me to teach music, with one exception – Anne, the flower of princesses’.

Handel the tutor

King George II’s consort, Queen Caroline, died on 20 November 1737, and at the King’s request Handel composed the Funeral anthem The ways of Zion do mourn for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey on 17 December. The Queen had been a friend of Handel in Hanover, and was also an accomplished musician. The Duke of Chandos wrote that ‘the anthem took up three quarter of an hour of the time, of which the composition was exceeding fine, and adapted very properly to the melancholly of the occasion of it; but I can’t say so much of the performance’.

Funeral music for Queen Caroline

‘Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about 50 in number, who played on all kinds of instruments, to wit trumpets, horns, hautboys, bassoons, German flutes, French flutes, violins

and basses; but there were no singers.’

Report from Friedrich Bonet, the Prussian Resident, to Berlin, July 1717

The Establishment of their Royal Highnesses the Princess Royal, the Princess Amelia, and the Princess Carolina. … Per Ann. £. s. d.Dancing-Master, Mr. Anthony L’abbé – 240 0 0 Musick-Master, Mr. George-Frederic Handell 200 0 0

Payment records from John Chamberlayne’s Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia, 20 June 1728

In 1727 George I died and his son was crowned George II in Westminster Abbey on 11 October 1727. The Norwich Mercury announced that ‘Mr Hendel’ had been appointed by the King to compose the music for the Coronation, and other newspapers describe large crowds gathering to hear the rehearsals of the music. The scale of the performance, with over 40 singers and about 160 in the orchestra, was unprecedented for such an event. Handel composed four Coronation Anthems, of which the most famous is Zadok the Priest; the text had been used at every coronation since King Edgar’s in 973, and Handel’s setting has been performed at every British coronation since 1727. During the prescribed ceremony all four anthems were to be performed, but, according to a copy of the 1727 service annotated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir omitted one anthem and sang Zadok in its place by mistake.

Coronation Anthems

Right: Coronation Anthem: Zadok the Priest. Copyist’s manuscript for the Earl of Shaftesbury: ca 1740© The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

‘Yesterday there was a Rehearsal of the Musick that is to be perform’d at their Majesties Coronation in Westminster Abbey, where was present the greatest Concourse of people that

has ever been known.’

Read’s Weekly Journal, 7 October 1727

‘During the whole ceremony a band of the most skilful musicians, together with the finest voices in England, sung admirable symphonies, conducted by the celebrated Mr. Handel,

who had composed the Litany.’

Cesar de Saussure, letter to his family, 11 October 1727

In 1749 Britain was celebrating the end of the War of Austrian Succession, and a fireworks display was arranged in Green Park. Handel was commissioned to write music for the event, and a public rehearsal of the music at Vauxhall Gardens attracted thousands of people, reportedly causing a three-hour traffic jam of carriages. The event itself was less successful; one wing of the wooden structure devised by the theatre designer Giovanni Servandoni, which acted as a platform for the launch of the fireworks, caught fire. However, the music was performed successfully and the King watched the proceedings from the library at St James’s Palace.

An ‘account of the machine for firing the works’ and many images of the event were published. Handel’s music was composed for wind band; surviving correspondence records that the King wanted it to be composed for ‘martial instruments’ (wind, brass and percussion) but Handel overrode his wishes and included stringed instruments in his final score.

Music for the Royal Fireworks

A perspective view of the magnificent structure erected in the Green Park. Robert Wilkinson, 1749© The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation

‘Yesterday there was the brightest and most numerous Assembly ever known at the Spring Garden, Vauxhall; on Occasion of the Rehearsal of Mr. Handel’s Music, for the Royal Fire Works. Several Footmen who attended their Masters, &c. thither, behaved very sausily, and were justly

corrected by the Gentlemen for their Insolence.’

General Advertiser, 22 April 1749

‘Was performed, at Vauxhall Gardens, the rehearsal of the music for the fireworks, by a band of 100 musicians, to an audience of above 12,000 persons (tickets 2s. 6d.). So great a resort

occasioned such a stoppage on London Bridge, that no carriage could pass for 3 hours.’

The Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1749

‘Handel’s royal and ceremonial music has stood the test of time because it does more than just serve the occasions for which it was written – it’s memorable in its own right. We still whistle

the tunes from the Water Music, thrill to the trumpets and drums of Zadok the Priest, tap our feet to the Fireworks Music.’

John Rutter (December, 2013)

GEORGE FRIDERIC

HANDEL1685 – 1759

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