George Frederick Handel’s
Water Music Suite:
The Stories, The Original
Score & The Instruments Used at its Premiere
It seems strange, that a composer who composed mostly operas and other vocal works would be remembered mostly by two orchestral suites (Pawlowski 1). But that is just the case with Baroque composer George Frederick Handel. Handel was born in Germany, but spent large portions of his life in Italy as well as in London, where he composed these two suites, the Water Music Suite and Music for the Royal Fireworks (Grout 424). The exact story behind the debut of Water Music has not been confirmed, but we do know that it debuted on July 17, 1717 for King George, while on a boating excursion in the Thames (Grout 424). The exact instrumentation Handel used in the suite is also a mystery, but the types of instruments used for its debut in 1717 are quite different than those used today, and I will compare various aspects of these such as the difference in appearance, timbre and the capabilities of these Baroque instruments.
The story behind the Water Music Suite begins in 1709 when Handel returned to Hanover and began to work for the Elector of Hanover. In 1710-1711 he took leave to visit London where he produced his opera, “Rinaldo.” It was a big success and Handel did not want to return to Hanover (Rosen 14). The funny part of the story happens in 1714, when the Elector of Hanover became the King of England. Handel tried to avoid the court, but the two eventually reconciled. “The legend is that Handel regained favor by composing and conducting a suite of pieces for wind instruments that were played as a surprise for the kind during a boating party on the Thames (Grout 424).” Another no-so-humorous version of the story, is that King George I asked Handel to provide the music for his river excursion. It is also said, “His Majesty’s approval of it was so great that he caused it to be played three times in all (Han-Leon 1).”
In an essay by Scott Giles, it is said that next to the King’s barge there were close to fifty musicians, playing horns, trumpets, oboes, bassoons, German flutes, French flutes, violins and basses (Giles 1). It is also said to be the first performance ever to use 3 timpani (previously only 2 had been used in performances). But the original manuscripts of Water Music have been lost, and some sources only list horns in F, flutes in G, and trumpets in D, as being what the three suites have been scored for (Han-Leon 1).
Even though we may never know the exact instrumentation of the Water Music Suite, examining the instruments of the Baroque period helps musicians of today play it as closely to the original as possible. Since none of these instruments were completely developed yet, many of them were only in existence for a short period of time; there are many different characteristics of the instruments and the styles of the performers. The construction of these instruments is quite simple, compared to today’s standards, causing the timbre to be different, as well as their capabilities.
One of the instruments we know for sure that Handel orchestrated for was the trumpet. In Harry Schwartz’s book, The History of Musical Instruments, he wrote that most of the trumpets around this time were built in the key of D. He describes them as being “small in bore, …and used a small mouthpiece.” Schwartz also mentions that these trumpets used were eight feet long. These instruments built in D were called upon to play “from the seventeenth to the twenty-first partial (Schwartz 167).” Of course, this was only the first part, the second, third and fourth, were all written lower. Around this time in the eighteenth century, Schwartz describes the trumpet as “gaining great favor with kings and princes.” And to prove his point, Schwartz goes on to say “today the rank of leaders of the nation is shown by the number of cannons fired in their honor. In former times the rank was shown by the number of trumpeters who accompanied the royal personage (Schwartz 167-168).”
Handel was the first composer to use the horn in England. It was known in Germany at the time as the “waldhorn” and “was first used in the orchestra by Keiser in his opera ‘Octavia,’ performed in Hamburg in 1705.” Handel decided to introduce the horn to England with the performance of Water Music. Schwartz describes this momentous event as “not as English as it may seem, for Handel, the English kind and the horn were all from Germany.” After their debut in Water Music, the horns had found a place in English orchestras, and every composer after Handel has used it in their compositions. The horn at this time was played with the bell up, not down like it is today. There were only a couple of curves in the tubing, and the mouthpiece was played in a horizontal position to the mouth, and the bell opened straight up. These horns were only about seven and a half feet long, compared to the twelve and nine feet long modern horns. The most common horns were those pitched in D and in F. To change the fundamental key, the player would have to change the crook, or the mouthpipe (Schwartz 191-192). In his book, A Survey of Musical Instruments, Sibyl Marcuse describes the different crooks, and says, “the best were in F, and sounded fuller and filled in better than did the ‘screaming clarins’ (trumpets), because they were pitched a fifth lower…(Marcuse 755).”
The flutes, oboes and bassoons had to undergo some major changes when they were readmitted into the orchestra around the eighteenth century. The first thing Sachs described in his History of Musical Instruments, is the instruments were made out of “two or more pieces tightly fitting into each other instead of making one clumsy tube, [which] allowed the player to regulate the pitch by adjusting the length in the manner of a telescope.” The second improvement was for the double reeds, gaining the ability to adapt the cut of the reed. The third improvement Sachs mentions is found in the bore, which allowed the instruments to produce a “smoother tone.” Sachs describes a typical eighteenth century flute as being conical, with six open front holes, arranged in two groups, which was made out of wood, and sometimes ivory. The earliest form of the modern oboe was developed sometime around the beginning of the eighteenth century. The instrument had a “slim, conical bore, the diameter at the lower end being twice the size of the diameter at the upper end. The head was cup-shaped…[and] as a distinguishing characteristic, this form of oboe had two pairs of smaller holes pierced side by side instead of the two middle fingerholes…(Sachs 380-383)” Schwartz describes Handel’s love of the oboe, saying that he “used them as frequently as he did violins. In fact Handel often marked parts in his scored to be played ‘either by violins or oboes.’ Sometimes he had oboes doubling violins.” This seems odd, since Schwartz described the timbre of oboes of that time as “coarse and raucous in tone.” The bassoons of this time are very similar to the modern instrument except instead of keys, they had fingerholes. One major difference, though between the bassoons and the oboes is the size of the reeds. The old reeds for each instrument were considerably larger and wider. The old reeds also used waxed string to stay together, where the modern reeds are held together by wire (Schwartz 90). The older reeds also had that "louder and coarser” tone, described by Schwartz previously.
The stringed instruments of this time were reaching their peak. According to Sachs, there was a “large dynasty of leading violin makers” including Andrea Amati, his sons Antonio and Hieronymous, and his grandson Nicola. These were the men who determined the form of violins for the Baroque period, which consisted of “a flatter body, deepened the middle bouts, sharpened the corners, rounded the holes and improved the varnish.” From this, the classical shape of the violin was created. Sachs mentions that one of Nicola’s students soon became the “grand-master of al epochs and countries,” Antonio Stadivari. Sachs states that “his violins can easily be recognized, but it would be difficult to describe them, since during the almost one hundred years of his life he was continually altering his pattern.” Sachs goes on to mention that “violins are like human beings; no two are identical. Their differences and similarities cannot be classified by any systematization, nor do they lend themselves to scientific description.” Besides Stadivari, there were a number of other masters of violin making. Among them were Carlo Bergonzi and Joseph Guarneri, but by 1750, the peak was over (358-359).
The bows of stringed instruments are a whole issue in themselves. According to Marcuse and “violin lore,” it is said that in the late seventeenth century, Corelli improved the bow so that the hair was at the same distance from the stick at both ends. Previously, bows had been curved, without a completely formed frog. By the mid-seventeenth century the wood was almost straight, paving the way for Corelli and the other violinmakers to perfect it. Bows were made out of many different woods, including brazilwood, ebony and others including “Indian wood (Marcuse 522).”
All of the instruments described here are the instruments used in Handel’s time and were the exact types of instruments used for the debut of one of his most popular works, the Water Music Suite. Although we don’t know for sure why it was written or exactly what happened the night it was premiered for King George I, July 17, 1717; or even what instruments the original score called for; the Water Music Suite is still popular today, almost three hundred years after its original debut. During his career and since his death, the works of Handel have been continuously popular, which is a difficult goal of all composers.
George Frederick Handel’s Water Music Suite:
The Stories, The Original
Score, & The Baroque Instruments Used at its Premiere
Brenda Luchsinger
Music Lit 221
April 16, 2001
Bibliography
Giles, Scott. “Water Water Everywhere: Comparative Survey of the Water Music.”
4/14/01 Online. www.augustensemble.org/thewater.htm
Grout, Donald Jay and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. 5th ed. New
York: Norton, 1996.
Royal Fireworks.” Online.
“The Handel Homepage.” http://inkpot.com/classical/handelwf.html
Marcuse, Sibyl.
A Survey of Musical Instruments.
New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
Pawlowski, Roman.
“Suite from the Water Music.” Immaculata College Program notes,
April 22, 1995. Online. www.immaculata.edu/symphony/Apr95.htm
Rosen, Robert.
“Music 221 Music of the 17th
and 18th Centuries Class no. 18.”
Class
Notes, March 2, 2001.
Sachs, Curt.
The History of Musical Instruments. New York: Norton, 1940.
Schwartz, Harry W.
The Story of Musical Instruments. New York: Books for
Libraries
Press, 1970.