Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a German,
later British, baroque composer who spent the bulk of
his career in London, becoming well known for his
operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel
received important training in Halle and worked as a
composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London
in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great
composers of the Italian Baroque and by the
middle-German polyphonic chora...(+)
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a German,
later British, baroque composer who spent the bulk of
his career in London, becoming well known for his
operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel
received important training in Halle and worked as a
composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London
in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great
composers of the Italian Baroque and by the
middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Handel had most likely already left Hamburg for Italy
by the time he got around to composing the second of
his three true oboe concertos, the Oboe Concerto in B
flat major, HWV 301, of 1708 or thereabouts (known as
"No. 2" because the earliest-composed of the three oboe
concertos, HWV 287 in G minor, was not published until
the nineteenth century), and we might reasonably expect
Handel's trip to the Mediterranean to have had a marked
effect on his view of concerto form and style, which
was after all an Italian development. In many ways,
however, the Concerto in B flat major, HWV 301, seems
little different from its sister work of a half decade
or so earlier (HWV 287, composed ca. 1703): like that
earlier Oboe Concerto, the Oboe Concerto No. 2 in B
flat major is in a four-movement pattern that shows
more respect for what was by then very much a German
sonata da chiesa tradition as it does for the Italian
concerto innovations of the day (particularly the
emerging three-movement concerto design) with which
Handel, living in Rome, was certainly familiar. Handel
was in his early twenties when HWV 301 was written, but
still the work can hardly be called a prentice piece
(as some of the operas written around the same time
indeed can); its suave self-assuredness and lean,
no-frills-attached melodic style was just as
attractive, perhaps even more attractive, in 1740, when
publisher John Walsh first printed the Concerto, as it
had been when Handel penned the work some thirty or
thirty-five years earlier.
The Oboe Concerto No. 2 follows the four-movement
slow-fast-slow-fast plan that fans of Handel's (or
Corelli's, or Bach's, or a host of other Baroque
composers) duo and trio sonatas are already familiar
with. None of the three oboe concertos is very long,
and HWV 301 may well be the briefest of the bunch.
First up is a rich Adagio whose broad oboe melody moves
forth atop a gentle, "walking" bassline. The movement
ends with a mini-cadenza half-cadence that is only
resolved at the start of the following, brilliant (but
not especially virtuosic) Allegro. The Siciliano third
movement could hardly be more friendly and easygoing,
the Vivace finale more aristocratic; rather unusually,
the violins double the solo oboe throughout the last
movement.
Although originally written for Oboe & Baroque
Orchestra, I created this Interpretation of the
Concerto in B Minor (HWV 301) for Solo Viola & Strings
(2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION