Oboes 1, 2, 3; horns 1, 2, 3; trumpets 1, 2, 3; timpani; strings; continuo

Ouverture
Bourée
La Paix
La Réjouissance
Menuets I & II

Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

George II, the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle, took a special interest in the military conduct of the war, and when the War of the Austrian Succession came to an end in 1748, he also took a personal interest in celebrating the peace.  The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was signed in October of that year, inspired the most spectacular and widespread fireworks celebrations Europe had ever seen.  For the London celebration, the king imported the Chevalier Servandoni to design a fireworks display, and he commissioned Handel, then 64 years old and at the height of his popularity, to compose the music.

Servandoni, was well known for his design work at the Paris Opera and for the spectacular scenic machinery he created for royal wedding celebrations on the continent.  For this commission, he now designed a fireworks "machine" 114 feet high and 410 feet long, which, according to the official printed program, was "adorned with Frets, Gilding, Lustres, Artificial Flowers, Inscriptions, Statues, Allegorical Pictures, etc."   It took five months to build.  Also brought in for the occasion was a team of Italian pyrotechnicians who were to operate the huge - and hugely expensive - fireworks display.  (The rockets alone numbered more than 10,000.)

For this grand occasion, Handel originally planned music for a traditional orchestra of strings, winds and percussion;  but the king, who was personally supervising the preparations, insisted instead on a very large ensemble of only "war-like instruments" -- i. e. an orchestra without strings.  The Duke of Montague, charged with overseeing the music for the event, became the unhappy intermediary in the musical stand-off between Handel and the king.  In the duke's correspondence, we find the composer intent on including strings and on reducing the desired number of winds -- and we see Handel acceding to the king's wishes only at the last moment.

On April 21, 1749, there was an open rehearsal of Handel's new work in Vauxhall Gardens, and, according to varying descriptions, between 50 and 100 wind and percussion instruments participated. Public interest in this grandest -- and, as it turned out, last -- of Handel's orchestral works was enormous.  The rehearsal reportedly drew an audience of 12,000 and created a traffic jam that tied up London Bridge for hours.

The actual performance took place in Green Park on the evening of April 27.  First, Handel's "grand overture of warlike instruments" was played for the crowd, while the king and his entourage toured Servandoni's machine.  Then came the firing of 101 brass cannon alternating, according to accounts, with music.  Finally, the fireworks began at 8:30.  From this point, things did not go smoothly.  Inside the machine, English and Italian technicians argued about safety.  There was an explosion, and the north pavilion caught on fire.  The fire was brought under control, but, in his frustration, the Chevalier Servandoni drew his sword and had to be disarmed and arrested.

The display, wrote Horace Walpole, "by no means answered the expense, the length of preparation, and the expectation that had been raised."  Although the machine was "worth seeing," the fireworks themselves were a mixed affair and "lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait for the finishing."  At midnight, the display was stopped, with a good deal of the fireworks still unused.  Newspapers were sarcastic about the show.  Only Handel's music had been a complete success. 

The brilliant and lengthy overture forms the bulk of the suite, and it creates the most massive sound, orchestrated with winds in threes, rather than in the more normal pairs.  The overture is then followed by a series of smaller movements, some of which  (e. g. the Bourrée) are delicately detailed. Perhaps these smaller movements were the music that alternated with the firing of the cannon. 

On May 27, a month after the premiere, Handel performed his Fireworks Music more or less as he had originally conceived it.  In a performance at the Foundling Hospital, he led an orchestra which included strings and had fewer winds than at the premiere.  As with a number of other Handel works, however, it is difficult -- and perhaps unnecessarily limiting -- to fix a definitive orchestration for the Fireworks Music.  Since Handel himself performed the work both with and without strings, as well as with ensembles of different sizes, the modern performer is faced with questions and choices about instrumentation.

In the only surviving autograph manuscript -- the version which includes strings --  Handel lists both contrabassoon and serpent to reinforce the bass line.  But this too is far from a straightforward prescription.  Handel had called for a contrabassoon before, but the 18th-century historian Charles Burney tells us that, for want of a proper reed or an adequate player, the instrument was not used successfully in England until a quarter century after Handel's death.  As for the serpent, it too was not yet common in England.  According to one contemporary historian, this large wooden wind instrument, covered in leather and named for its sinuous shape, was played for Handel, and he quipped that it could not have been "the serpent that tempted Eve."  Nonetheless, he showed interest in it on more than one occasion and listed it as one of the instruments to double the bass line in his Fireworks Music.  At some point, however, the word "serpent" was crossed out in the manuscript.  We do not know when or why it was crossed out or whether it was used in the earliest performances. Here too Handel might have run into the practical problem of finding a good player, since the serpent in England had been used only occasionally in churches and in the theater and did not join the military bands until later. 

All this leaves the modern performer with certain decisions and choices about instrumentation.  What is clear, however, is that Handel wanted this music to make a grand effect, and it is in that spirit that one might also consider employing a military field drum, as suggested in one source.  One may have been used among the military instruments, although its part is not in the score and would be ad libitum.

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