A Very Quick Guide to Handel's Water Music

A warm summer’s day in London, 1717. King George I, accompanied by a number of lavishly dressed courtiers, has just boarded the royal barge on the Thames at Whitehall. The royal party makes its way serenely upriver, carried on the tide towards their destination at Chelsea. A flotilla of boats accompanies the royal barge, for this is no ordinary expedition—from one of the craft an orchestra of fifty musicians begins to play a new piece by one of the most celebrated composers in Europe... Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide to Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks

Music history abounds with disastrous premieres, but few come close to that of Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks.’ Featuring a royally hobbled orchestra, fire, water and some maimings, things did not go as well as the composer had hoped. More than 250 years later, however, it is considered one of the Handel's best works... Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide to...Passion Music

What’s it all about?

Holy Week is a significant period in the Christian liturgical calendar, leading up to Easter. For Christians round the world this is traditionally a time of contemplation, marking the events which collectively are known as the Passion of Christ. These begin with Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and culminate in his crucifixion on good Friday and resurrection on Easter Day. Passion music, traditionally performed on Good Friday, is a dramatic re-enactment of these events. Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide To... The Song Cycle

What’s it all about?

2023 marks the 200th anniversary of the composition of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, one of the greatest song cycles ever written and the work which established the genre as the go-to option for classical composers wanting to transform the humble song-with-piano into a major musical artform.

Why the name “song cycle”? Sounds like a musical bike . . .

Save the jokes for later please. Although admittedly the term is a bit random, and it’s often tricky to distinguish between “proper” song cycles (from the German, Liederkreis, or “song circle”) and simple song collections. Some song cycles, like Die Schöne Mullerin, have a definite narrative coherence, telling a story from beginning to end. Others are looser, comprising collections of songs linked only by a particular mood, or setting words by the same poet.

Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide to . . . The Clarinet

What’s it all about?

The clarinet, the most versatile and perhaps most popular of all wind instruments.

When did it all start?

The modern clarinet is a direct descendant of the old chalumeau, a popular instrument back in the middle ages and Renaissance – basically a type of recorder, but with a reed.

In about 1700 German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner (or possibly one of his sons – the details are fuzzy) designed a new version of the chalumeau adding a single key to the instrument to expand its range – effectively, the first clarinet. Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide To . . . The Viola

What’s it all about?

The viola. The neglected alto of the string family. Always the bridesmaid, hardly ever the bride.

So when did it all start?

Sometime around 1550 – and we won’t go into the long and convoluted pre-history of the modern string instrument family here. Suffice to say that Italian luthier Andrea Amati is generally credited with creating the first modern violas (and violins) sometime in the 1550s, closely followed by Gasparo da Salò. Andrea Amati’s descendants continued to produce magnificent violas, eventually handing their secrets down to Antonio Stradivarius, the most famous of all instrument makers.
Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide To . . . Elizabethan Music

What’s it all about?

The Elizabethan era – or the “golden age” of English history as it’s still often described. An era during which this rainy and slightly insular island off the coast of northern Europe first began to establish itself on the world stage. An era which witnessed the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, the great exploratory voyages and naval triumphs of Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. And of course the iconic queen herself, perhaps the most celebrated of all English monarchs. Continue reading...

A Very Quick Guide To . . .Thomas Weelkes

What’s it all about?

2023 is going to be a big year for English early music thanks to the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, one of the country’s greatest ever composers, with a raft of celebratory concerts, recordings and scholarly publications planned to mark the event. But spare a thought for fellow Elizabethan composer Thomas Weelkes, who had the misfortune to die in the same year as Byrd and whose own 400th anniversary is going slightly under the radar as a result.
Continue reading...