By Gerhard Haas

Georg Friedrich Handel (1685 – 1759) had traveled and worked in Germany and Italy, before coming to London in 1710.  His operas, written in the Italian style, were an immediate success, and he was feted and sought after.  After a brief return to Hanover to fulfill earlier commitments, he returned to England in 1712 to become its citizen and to remain for the rest of his life.

The Water Music (1717) is a suite of dances, airs, fanfares, and the like, written for a royal water pageant down the Thames.  The event was described in the London Daily Courant of July 19, 1717:  “On Wednesday evening about 8, the King took water at Whitehall in an open barge . . . and went up the river toward Chelsea.  Many other barges with persons of quality attended, and so great was the number of boats, that the whole river in a manner was covered.  A city company’s barge was employed for the music, where were fifty instruments of all sorts, who played all the way from Lambeth . . . the finest symphonies, composed expressly for this occasion by Mr. Handel:  which His Majesty liked so well that he caused it to be played over three times in going and returning.”  The suite, which included about twenty pieces, is rarely heard as originally performed.  Today’s renditions are a selection which were transcribed for orchestra by Sir Hamilton Harty. 

 

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) was considered the dean of the “Russian Five,” a group of composers, including Mussorgsky and Borodin, whose mission was to free themselves from French and German influences and create a decidedly Russian art.  While many of his compositions have clearly met that goal—consider the “Russian Easter Overture”—two of his most well known works, the Scheherazade from Arabia, and the Capriccio Espagnol from Spain, draw their inspiration from abroad.

The Spanish Caprice (1887) is fully the soul and music of Spain, which, through brilliant orchestration, turns a standard orchestra into a fiery ensemble that channels guitars, castanets and gypsy songs.  The five movements are played without pause and begin with an “Alborada,” or morning song, followed by variations.  The fourth part, “Scene and Gypsy Song,” begins with a drum roll that introduces five cadenzas, after which the harp sets the stage for a dramatic gypsy song.  The pace in the last part grows hectic as earlier melodies are embroidered and accelerated in the final presto.

 

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) composed many types of music—songs, instrumental solos, ensembles and concertos, sacred chorals, symphonies and one opera.  He is best known for his piano music and symphonies, which are admired and loved throughout the world.

Both the “Coriolan Overture” and Eighth Symphony were composed during his middle period, after he had progressed beyond the style of Haydn and Mozart, taking a decidedly new approach to infusing his music with feeling and passion.

The Overture (1807) introduces a play by Heinrich Joseph von Collins, which is based on Shakespeare’s earlier play—Coriolanus.  The work plots the tragedy of a stubborn Roman soldier who is caught between the new rule of the Republic and his own plan to attack and rule the city.  In the end, he is persuaded by his mother to abandon his siege.  Beethoven’s overture conveys this entire intense public and personal struggle.  Bold and long C minor chords, punctuated by a slash of sound, begin and end the piece.  Yet along with the conflict, one hears in the E flat major theme the tender pleading of his mother.  In Shakespeare’s plot, Coriolanus is assassinated by his co-conspirators, after he abandons their plans to overthrow the city.  In the updated German play, written during the Romantic period, the doomed hero commits suicide.  In either case, Beethoven’s score brings pathos and grief to the stage.

The Eighth Symphony in F Major, described by Beethoven as his “little symphony,” offers both familiarity and surprise.  First performed in Vienna in February, 1814, it abounds in serene and unbuttoned good humor.  Like the other even-numbered symphonies, it is exuberant and playful in form and content.  Wagner described it as evoking the “games and caprices of a child.”  While written in the familiar four movements, the second and third movements don’t fit the expected patterns, and the last dominates the entire work. 

The first movement looks back to the classic style in its concise form, yet it surprises with witty content.  Rather than being traditionally slow, the second movement is a restrained and humorous scherzando, with a sprightly theme in the strings, set against soft brisk chords in the winds.  Its rhythmic precision is thought to satirize the use of the metronome which had recently been invented by Beethoven’s friend, Malzel.  The third movement revisits the eighteenth century in a rather classic minuet, which Beethoven’s hadn’t included since his Fourth Symphony.  The fourth movement instantly accelerates into a big, fiery scherzo.  Here the tail is wagging the dog, as the movement now dominates all that was heard before—it is also the longest finale Beethoven had as yet composed.  Whereas the first and third movements take a brief look backward, the last movement races forward in a new and spontaneous uproar.