Handel’s “Music for the Royal Fireworks”: A Festive Celebration

On the afternoon of April 21, 1749, an estimated twelve thousand people, each paying two shillings and six pence, descended on London’s Vauxhall Gardens to take in an open-air rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. The ensuing traffic jam resulted in a three-hour backup of carriages across London Bridge, and incidences of road rage. Handel was commissioned to write the festive five-movement suite for a lavish public celebration which occurred a week …

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Handel’s “Eternal Source Of Light Divine”: Marie-Sophie Pollak and Concerto München

Eternal Source of Light Divine forms the majestic opening statement of Handel’s secular cantata, Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, HWV 74. The aria is a kind of ceremonial call to order. The angelic vocal line is echoed by the trumpet, which seems to emerge from timeless, celestial expanses. Occasionally, the two voices weave together in near canonic counterpoint. Handel composed this music in January of 1713. It was intended to celebrate …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548: A “Two-Movement Symphony”

Among the most expansive and complex organ works of J.S. Bach is the towering Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548. The 19th century Bach biographer, Philipp Spitta, went so far as to call it “a two-movement symphony” for organ. According to the polymath musicologist, Albert Schweitzer, these two complimentary movements are “so mighty in design, and have so much harshness blended with their power, that the hearer can only grasp them …

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The Italian Christmas Concerto: Music of Corelli, Vivaldi, and Locatelli

In one of Italy’s most enduring Christmas traditions, shepherds from the mountains enter towns to perform carols on the piffero (a reed instrument similar to the oboe) and the zampogna (a kind of bagpipe). The impromptu concerts recall legends in which shepherds in Bethlehem celebrated the birth of Jesus through the music of their pipes. These rustic sounds enter the Baroque Christmas concerto, a form of concerto grosso popularized by numerous composers …

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Handel’s “Ah Mio Cor” from “Alcina”: Julia Kirchner and Operatic Puppetry

Handel’s 1735 opera, Alcina, tells a fantastic story of sorcery, harrowing adventure, and heartbreak. The beautiful and treacherous Alcina seduces all of the men who land on her enchanted island. Eventually growing tired of each of her lovers, she transforms them into animals, plants, or stones. When the dashing knight, Ruggiero, falls under Alcina’s spell, his fiancée, Bradamante, seeks to rescue him. Bradamante is disguised as her brother, Ricciardo. Her plan is …

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Bach’s Viola da Gamba Sonata in G Major, BWV 1027: “The Loveliest, the Purest Idyll Conceivable”

The popularity of the viola da gamba was already fading when J.S. Bach composed three sonatas for the instrument (BWV 1027–1029) in the late 1730s. A predecessor to the cello, the bowed, fretted string instrument evolved from the Spanish vihuela in the late 15th century, and flourished during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Evidence suggests that Bach wrote the Viola da Gamba Sonatas in Leipzig. During this period, in addition to his …

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Bach’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R: Virtuosity and Fire

Bach was a master of adaptation and reuse. He made a habit of crafting harpsichord concerti out of previously written concerti for other instruments. Such is the case with the Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, which is believed to be a transcription of a long-lost Bach violin concerto. The score is filled with passages which fit neatly into the violin as bariolage, “the alternation of notes on adjacent strings, one …

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