Sunday Classics preview: It's "Horns ahoy!" in Handel's horn-happy "Water Music"

The Minuet (our No. 6) from Handel's Water Music -- after a fashion

by Ken

Sometimes it's a fine line between Sunday Classics "flashbacks" and "previews." Last night we flashed back to last week, with one last hearing of the now-widely-disparaged Hamilton Harty suite from Handel's Water Music, though I did offer the suggestion/clue to pay attention to the horns.

The concept and makeup of this newfangled thing called an "orchestra" was still taking shape in Handel's time, and it would be hard to imagine a more dazzling demonstration of what horns could bring to the party than Handel provided. So tonight we're going to focus on four horn-happy movements from the Water Music.

Note that they're all from the first of the three suites that make up the Water Music, the one in the horn dream key of F major -- a reminder that the horns of Handel's time were still "natural" ones, which is to say the kind without the valves that allowed later horn players to produce any note, thus severely limiting the keys natural horns could play in.


TO HEAR OUR HORN-HAPPY WATER MUSIC
MOVEMENTS -- PLUS A BONUS -- CLICK HERE

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