Music and Vinyl: Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks

Written at the request of King George II to celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748, George Frideric Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks has become of one of his most popular works, but it's premiere in 1749 was like no other.

The composition didn't get off to a good start because the King insisted on there being no strings in the orchestra, but lots of wind, brass and percussion to let the music be heard over the fireworks. So Handel scored it for 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, a contrabassoon, 9 trumpets, 9 horns, three sets of timpani, and side drums.

There was a rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens on 21st April - and the audience (claimed to be over 12,000!) paid 2 shillings and 6 pence (£0.25) to hear it. On 27th April the band gathered on an elaborate stage set especially designed for the occasion.

However, heavy rain meant that many of the fireworks either failed to go off, or went off at the wrong time. Stray fireworks landed in the crowd, a ladies dress was burnt, two soldiers got burned and another blinded. Not only this, the staging caught fire - despite the rain.

Quite how much the crowd heard of the music above the fireworks is debatable, but it was popular right from the rehearsal. Handel added strings and scaled down the wind and percussion for a performance at the Foundling Hospital on May 27th, producing the version which is now commonly performed.

In an obituary notice for Charles Mackerras - the conductor of this 1958 recording, Brian Reinhart writes:

"In his interviews, in his recordings, in his writings, it is the passion which shines through. Mackerras entered the world of music like a child entering a sweet shop, eyes aglow with wonder. In a talk with David Hurwitz, he explained the birth of his interest in Handel: “when I was a teenager I got to look at a facsimile of [the Water Music score] and I saw immediately that what we were hearing bore little relationship to what Handel had actually written. And with the Fireworks Music, I saw the original orchestration and I thought ‘My God, I wonder what this must sound like!’ You know, the original has 24 oboes … we got every wind player in London to come for one session, in the middle of the night, and have a go at it. It was all edited and issued very quickly, in just a few days, and I must say I was a bit frightened that it would sound horrible.” This is the philosophy of music as adventure. Maybe it would sound horrible (it didn’t), and maybe all the wind players in London would have egg on their faces. The point was to find out. The point was to have fun."

A bit of trivia - one of the oboe players on this recording was Evelyn Rothwell, wife of conductor Sir John Barbirolli.