HANDEL, George Frideric 1685-1759

Anthem For the Funeral of Queen Caroline. Composed in the Year 1737. [HWV 264]. [Full score]

London: Arnold, [ca. 1795].

1f. (recto title, verso blank), 3-80 pp., 1f. (recto contents, verso blank). Engraved throughout. First Edition. Smith p. 154, no. 7. Arnold editions 155-156. RISM H1558.

Bound with:
Anthem For the Wedding of Frederick Prince of Wales, and the Princess of Saxa-Gotha, Composed in the the Year 1736. [HWV 263]. [Full score] London: Arnold, [ca. 1795]. Large folio (273 x 372 mm). 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 3-85, [i] (blank) pp., 1f., [87] (recto contents, verso blank) pp. Engraved throughout. Arnold edition 153-154. Smith p. 155. RISM H1557.

Provenance
Noted American harpsichordist Louis Bagger (1926-2024)

Large folio (273 x 372 mm). Contemporary half black textured leather with marbled boards, raised bands on spine in gilt-ruled compartments, titling gilt.

Binding worn, rubbed, and bumped. Slightly worn; light uniform browning; occasional foxing.

"In 1737 Handel marked the death of Queen Caroline with his funeral anthem The Ways of Zion do Mourn, where a real sense of personal grief is reinforced in the music by Lutheran Chorale fragments and other quotations from German masters (including Jacobus Handl’s funeral motet Ecce quomodo moritur justus), surely in reference to the common heritage of the composer and the queen." Anthony Hicks in Grove Music Online. The anthem is a particularly personal and poignant sacred work.

"The wedding of the Prince of Wales on 27 April [1736] gave Handel an excuse for a short celebratory opera season consisting of a revival of Ariodante (in which Gioacchino Conti, a new castrato, was allowed to include non-Handelian arias from his previous continental repertory) and eight performances of the newly composed Atalanta (12 May 1736) – light in mood, as befitted the occasion, but not at all shallow; Frederick ostentatiously refused to attend the first night. Handel again supplied a wedding anthem (Sing unto God) for the ceremony itself, most of the music being new but with the final solo and chorus from Parnasso in festa re-used to make an exhilarating conclusion." Anthony Hicks in Grove Music Online.

Item #41219

Price: $600.00  other currencies