The baroque composer George Frideric Händel, was born
in Germany on the 23rd February 1685 and died on the
14th April 1759. He was a leading composer of concerti
grossi, operas and oratorios. He spent most of his
adult life in England and his most well known works are
Messiah, Water Music and Music for the Royal
Fireworks.
He wrote the Op 4 No 6 in B flat major as a Harp
Concerto. In that guise it was first performed on 19
February 1736 along with the Organ Concerto Op 4 No 1
at the premiere of Alexander?s Feast. Handel's purpose
in providing so diverse a program was a clear and
practical one?to give the paying audience enough
entertainment to keep them in their seats during the
singers' much-needed intermissions. Nevertheless, as
Dryden's Ode (on which Alexander's Feast is based)
contains an episode wherein noble Timotheus is found
playing his harp for Alexander the Great, there is a
certain amount of purely dramatic justification for the
insertion of a harp concerto into the narrative flow of
the oratorio.
Handel composed the music in January 1736, and the work
received its premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre,
London, on 19 February 1736. In the Opus 4 publication,
this Harp Concerto was issued as a work for organ and
orchestra (making it congruous with the other five
works in the volume), and it is on this instrument that
the work is most often played today. A quick glance at
the pared-down orchestra parts?the violins are muted,
bass parts played pizzicato, and the wind family is
represented by two lone flutes?and streamlined textures
of Op. 4, No. 6, however, reveals immediately that it
was originally conceived of for the quieter and gentler
harp. The piece is cast in three movements, more or
less following the then-emerging modern concerto
fast-slow-fast ordering.
As with many of the organ concertos, the orchestra is
entirely subordinate to the soloist in Op. 4, No. 6. In
the first movement (Andante allegro), for instance,
forty-six of the sixty-six measures are the exclusive
province of the harp; the tutti appears just four times
(double that if we account for the necessary repeat of
each half)?at the movement's opening and close, and to
lend its strength to two major internal cadences.
However, unlike the organ concertos, whose keyboard
parts were played by the very skilled Handel himself,
the Harp Concerto features little in the way of
virtuosic flair. Certainly there are running sixteenth
notes to spare in the first movement, but these are
almost always built around repetitive Alberti bass-like
figures that fall easily to the hand.
The transparent opening movement, with its main theme
built of seven broken-up, individual gestures, gives
way to the thicker, more "well-glued" melody of the G
minor Larghetto. Throughout the movement, the tutti is
consumed with pondering repeated dotted figures while,
each time it is given a chance, the harp/organ breaks
out with improvisatory musings of a far more flexible
nature.
Wholly dance-like is the concluding Allegro moderato,
with its bouncing 3/8 meter and 1 + 2 metric grouping.
This arrangement was created for Dr. Sophia Momand and
the Corelli Ensemble. |
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