At about eight in the evening the King repaired to his barge. Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about 50 in number, who played on all kinds of instruments, to wit trumpets, horns, hautboys, bassoon, German flutes, French flutes, violins, and basses; but there were no singers. The music had been composed specially by the famous Handel, a native of Halle, and His Majesty’s principal court composer. His Majesty approved of it so greatly that he caused it to be played three times in all, although each performance lasted an hour — namely; twice before and once after supper. The evening was all that could be desired for the festivity, and the number of barges and above all of boats filled with people wanting to listen was beyond counting.
Friedrich Bonet provided this helpful eyewitness account of the performance that took place on July 17, 1717, on the Thames under the aegis of King George I. It's important to note that this took place on what was evidently a beautiful summer night, which means that in addition to fifty musicians, their chairs (yes, I'm aware that most musicians of the time usually performed standing, but not on a moving barge for six hours!), and their music stands, the barge would also have had to have plenty of torches and lamps so they could read the music. (If this had taken place during the day the wooden instruments would have warped in the hot sunlight, while the brass players would likely have fainted and fallen overboard.) The journey began at Westminster and took a few hours to travel the two miles or so to Chelsea, where the royals ate their supper mentioned in Bonet's account, and then back to the palace. (Apparently the royals didn’t return home until 4:30 am!)
It's also notable that there is no mention of a harpsichord or any continuo instruments like lutes, which makes sense, since they would have been difficult to bring onto a barge or keep in tune, and they would have been almost certainly inaudible to the outdoor audience. Those instruments are included in the earliest editions of the work, however, which is why they're included in most modern recordings. We can assume they would have been used in subsequent performances that took place indoors with smaller ensembles, but Handel orchestrated the music in such a way that they aren't essential. (The timpani one sometimes hears in modern performances of Water Music have no basis in any evidence that Handel ever used them in this work.)
We don't know the exact numbers of each instrument that were deployed that night, but, based on studying this score as well as other works of Handel's where we do know the exact numbers, and taking Bonet at his word that there were fifty performers, I have come up with this estimated personnel list:
Six oboes, three of whom double on soprano recorder, and three of whom double on transverse flute
Four bassoons
Four horns
Four trumpets
Eighteen violins (sometimes divided into two sections of nine, other times divided into three sections of six)
Six violas
Five cellos
Three double basses
It's remarkable how similar that is to a modern orchestra in its size and proportions, especially when you consider that in London in 1717 it was a noteworthy event in one's life just to hear a trio sonata. It's hard to overstate how novel and extraordinary this was for that time. Anyone could wander down to the riverbank, or take their own boat out onto the water and follow the barge on its slow journey, and be treated to an hour of free music played by an ensemble of London's best musicians several times larger than most of them had ever heard. It was a milestone in the history of music, civic events, and in humanity's relationship to a body of water.
It's a testament to Handel's genius that he intuitively knew what would sound good played outdoors by a large ensemble, its sound reflecting off the river and traveling far when there would be little acoustic competition, bouncing off of buildings and bridges hundreds of yards away. He had the confidence to exploit the full range of the ensemble in the course of its 22 movements, from the concerto-like opening movement to the soft and stately Air to the majestic trumpet movements, and dances both slow and fast, both soft and loud. In its audacious spirit Water Music seems to leap forward a century to Beethoven and Berlioz, paving the way for the symphony orchestra.
But it was not Handel, Beethoven nor Berlioz who wrote the following words: "One must never say to art: Thou shalt go no further. One is always going further and one should always go further. They tell me that one must not go too far, and I reply that one must go to the very depths if one would deserve the name of a true master."
The author of that quote was the one composer who could challenge Handel's popularity and renown during his lifetime: Georg Philipp Telemann - who, as it happened, wrote his own "Water Music." And unlike Handel's work, Telemann's suite is actually music about water.
Written six years after Handel's Water Music, Telemann's work is actually called Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth, named for the ebb and flow of the Elbe river as it runs through the city of Hamburg. It was composed for the 100th anniversary of the Hamburg Admiralty, whose duties included managing boat traffic as well as the city's sewage disposal, but Telemann preferred to use the piece to celebrate water itself through vivid tone painting and charming references to Greek mythology. Scored for two oboes doubling both soprano and alto recorders, the standard four-part string section and harpsichord continuo (it was definitely intended for indoor performance), it manages to be as colorful as Handel's score despite its more limited palette. We can hear at the beginning a depiction of sunrise over the placid gently rippling river, and in the overture's fast section we hear the city's maritime culture come to life. The second movement is titled "The Sleeping Thetis", a reference to when Peleus attempted to bind Thetis, a powerful sea nymph, while she was sleeping, and she demonstrated her shape-shifting abilities that enabled her to escape being restrained. which we hear in the third movement, "Thetis awakening." The fourth movement is called "Neptune in love", in which we hear the emotional vulnerability of the most powerful sea god. In "Playing Naiads" we get a brief glimpse of frolicking nymphs, and in "The Joking Triton" we get a raucous portrayal of the merman son of Neptune. In "The Stormy Aeolus" and "The pleasant Zephir" we get Vivaldi-like pictures of the weather produced by the gods controlling the wind. In the brief "Ebb and Flow" we hear the power of the rushing water itself, and the work ends with a rambunctious sailor's dance in "The merry boat people." Throughout all ten movements we can hear Telemann, possibly the most prolific composer of all time, keeping his freshness intact as he "always goes further."
Please stay hydrated through these hot days. While it's important to keep drinking water and bathing in it, we can be grateful to composers who remind us that we can listen to it as well.
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