Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a true
European. He had a German work ethic, Italian passion
and a Dutch head for business. And after training in
Germany and Italy, from 1711 he went on to win the
hearts of the British. He wooed them with his many
operas and oratorios, and with instrumental works like
his Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.
Yet during his lifetime, he was renowned not only as an
organist, but also as one of the greatest
harpsichordists of his day....(+)
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a true
European. He had a German work ethic, Italian passion
and a Dutch head for business. And after training in
Germany and Italy, from 1711 he went on to win the
hearts of the British. He wooed them with his many
operas and oratorios, and with instrumental works like
his Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.
Yet during his lifetime, he was renowned not only as an
organist, but also as one of the greatest
harpsichordists of his day. The public couldn’t get
enough of him on the harpsichord, either as a composer
or a musician. Evidently times change. However, if we
take a closer look at the period during which Handel
settled in London, we soon see that people were
occupied with the same issues then as they are
today.
Contemporary publications of Handel's keyboard suites
fall into groups, a set of eight published in London in
1720, and a further group, also consisting of eight
sonatas, which appeared in 1733. The latter was printed
by the London publisher John Walsh, apparently without
Handel's authorization, and no doubt with a mind to the
great success achieved by the 1720 set in the ever
increasing market for domestic music. The best-known
work included in this second set is in fact not a
multi-movement suite, but a Chaconne in G succeeded by
twenty-one variations. The principle of using a
chaconne bass-pattern as the foundation to build a
continuously developing series of variants is familiar
from seventeenth-century keyboard music, and such
movements were frequently used as the culmination of a
suite of dances or even as a grand concluding gesture
to round off a group of suites. The descending
four-note bass pattern Handel employed here goes back
to one used by, among others, Purcell. It would also be
employed in Bach's Goldberg Variations, and the great
Chaconne in G with which the Viennese composer Gottlieb
Muffat brought his outstanding set of harpsichord
suites Componimenti Musicali to a conclusion. In
keeping with the usual characteristics of such pieces,
tension is gradually built by means of increasingly
demanding writing.
Although originally written for Keyboard, I created
this Arrangement of the Chaconne & Variations in G
Major (HWV 435 No. 10) for Concert (Pedal) Harp.
SHEET MUSIC