Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a German,
later British, baroque composer who spent the bulk of
his career in London, becoming well known for his
operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel
received important training in Halle and worked as a
composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London
in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great
composers of the Italian Baroque and by the
middle-German polyphonic chora...(+)
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 – 1759) was a German,
later British, baroque composer who spent the bulk of
his career in London, becoming well known for his
operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel
received important training in Halle and worked as a
composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London
in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great
composers of the Italian Baroque and by the
middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
The Concerti Grossi, Opus 6, or Twelve Grand Concertos,
HWV 319–330, are 12 concerti grossi by George
Frideric Handel for a concertino trio of two violins
and violoncello and a ripieno four-part string
orchestra with harpsichord continuo. First published by
subscription in London by John Walsh in 1739, in the
second edition of 1741 they became Handel's Opus 6.
Taking the older concerto da chiesa and concerto da
camera of Arcangelo Corelli as models, rather than the
later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio
Vivaldi favoured by Johann Sebastian Bach, they were
written to be played during performances of Handel's
oratorios and odes. Despite the conventional model,
Handel incorporated in the movements the full range of
his compositional styles, including trio sonatas,
operatic arias, French overtures, Italian sinfonias,
airs, fugues, themes and variations and a variety of
dances. The concertos were largely composed of new
material: they are amongst the finest examples in the
genre of baroque concerto grosso.
For the 1739–1740 season at the Lincoln's Inn Fields
theatre, Handel composed Twelve Grand Concertos to be
performed during intervals in these masques and
oratorios, as a feature to attract audiences:
forthcoming performances of the new concertos were
advertised in the London daily papers. Following the
success of his organ concertos Op.4, his publisher John
Walsh had encouraged Handel to compose a new set of
concertos for purchase by subscription under a
specially acquired Royal License. There were just over
100 subscribers, including members of the royal family,
friends, patrons, composers, organists and managers of
theatres and pleasure-gardens, some of whom bought
multiple sets for larger orchestral forces. Handel's
own performances usually employed two continuo
instruments, either two harpsichords or a harpsichord
and a chamber organ; some of the autograph manuscripts
have additional parts appended for oboes, the extra
forces available for performances during oratorios.
Walsh had himself very successfully sold his own 1715
edition of Corelli's celebrated Twelve concerti grossi
Op.6, first published posthumously in Amsterdam in
1714. The later choice of the same opus number for the
second edition of 1741, the number of concertos and the
musical form cannot have been entirely accidental; more
significantly Handel in his early years in Rome had
encountered and fallen under the influence of Corelli
and the Italian school. The twelve concertos were
produced in a space of five weeks in late September and
October 1739, with the dates of completion recorded on
all but No.9. The ten concertos of the set that were
largely newly composed were first heard during
performance of oratorios later in the season. The two
remaining concertos were reworkings of organ concertos,
HWV 295 in F major (nicknamed "the Cuckoo and the
Nightingale" because of the imitations of birdsong in
the organ part) and HWV 296 in A major, both of which
had already been heard by London audiences earlier in
1739. In 1740 Walsh published his own arrangements for
solo organ of these two concertos, along with
arrangements of four of the Op.6 concerti grossi (Nos.
1, 4, 5 and 10).
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerti_grossi,_Op._6_(
Handel)).
Although originally written for Baroque Orchestra, I
created this Interpretation of the Concerto Grosso in D
Major (HWV 323 Opus 6 No 5) for String Quartet (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).
