HANDEL, George Frideric 1685-1759

The Celebrated Water Musick in Seven Parts viz. Two French Horns, Two Violins or Hoboys, a Tenor, and a Thorough Bass for the Harpsicord or Violoncello Compos'd by Mr. Handel. Note. All the Works of this Author may be had where these are Sold. [HWV 350]

London: Printed for I. Walsh, in Catharine Street in the Strand, [ca. 1750-1760].

Folio. 7 parts. Complete. Unbound. In a custom-made full royal blue linen box with printed paper label to spine, marbled endpapers.

Corno primo: [1] (title), 2-4 pp.
Corno secondo: [1] (title), 2-4 pp.
Violino e Hautboy primo: [1] (title), 2-6 pp.
Violino e Hautboy secondo: [1] (title), 2-6 pp.
Alto Viola: [1] (title), 2-5, [i] (blank) pp.
Violoncello e Cembalo: 4 pp., 1f. (blank)
Bassoon: [1] (title), 2-6 pp.

Slightly browned; occasional soiling and small stains; some lower margins slightly trimmed, not affecting text or notation; all parts reinforced with narrow strip of clear tape to spine and inner margins.

Smith & Humphries pp. 255-56, no. 4 or possibly no. 6. BUC p. 442. RISM H1319 and HH1319.

"The major orchestral work of this period is the Water Music, a large-scale suite specially written to accompany a royal water party of June 1717, in which George I and his entourage were conveyed by barge along the Thames from Whitehall to Chelsea and back. The suite is remarkable for being the first orchestral work composed in England to include horns, crooked in both F and D; in movements in D major they are joined, sometimes in dialogue, by trumpets. The jovial opulence of such moments is balanced by lightly scored movements in both major and minor keys, mostly having G as their tonic. Though some of the music may have been written earlier for other contexts, the recent notion that the music was conceived or considered to exist as ‘three suites’ is questionable, since the earliest sources (keyboard transcripts from the early 1720s) show the movements in D and G in mixed order (as in the editions of Arnold and Chrysander). Ordering the movements by key had however become a practice by the 1730s, and is reflected in the keyboard arrangement published by Walsh in 1743." Anthony Hicks in Grove Music Online

Complete sets are rare.

Item #39697

Price: $2,800.00  other currencies