Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

In the fall of 1739, immediately after finishing his Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, Handel began composing twelve concerti grossi, completing the entire set within the astonishing space of one month. The dates of completion written at the ends of the concertos range from September 29 to October 30, an average of one concerto every 2-1/2 to 3 days.

His publisher John Walsh had invited him to compose a set of concertos along the lines of those of Corelli and Geminiani, which were popular in England. A new collection by Handel could be expected to sell very well. But Handel no doubt also had another purpose in mind for his new concertos. As he was beginning to turn toward writing English oratorios, it would be a great attraction to an audience to be able to hear new instrumental compositions during the intermissions -- concerti grossi, as well as organ concertos in which he himself could be the soloist. Indeed, we know that some of the concertos in his Opus 6 collection were eventually advertised as part of oratorio performances ("two new Concerto's for several Instruments, never perform'd before"), and, for those occasions, Handel even added oboe parts to some of them to augment the orchestra (nos. 1, 2, 5, and 6).

Much in these concertos reflects the Corellian model that Walsh had hoped for: a trio of two solo violins plus a solo cello that contrasted with the larger string ensemble, as well as some of the same dance movements and types of counterpoint that we hear in Corelli. But Handel's forms are often on a grander scale and more varied than his model.

Just before the final notes were written in the last concerto, an advertisement appeared calling for subscribers to the publication of "Twelve Grand Concerto's . . . Compos'd by Mr. Handel." A distinguished list of subscribers, including some members of the royal family, lent their support to the project, and Walsh published the set in April of 1740. It was not until the second printing the following year, however, that the collection was designated as Handel's Opus 6.

Handel's borrowing

While Handel often worked earlier music of his own and that of other composers into his compositions, his borrowings in these concertos are especially interesting, because they give such a fascinating picture of the music that currently engaged him. Two collections of harpsichord music by other composers figure prominently: Gottlieb Muffat's Componimenti musicali, published not long before Handel began work on these concertos, and Scarlatti's famous set of sonatas known as Essercizi, published in England only the year before. Suggestions and outright quotations from both collections turn up repeatedly in Handel's Opus 6 (although Scarlatti's influence is felt mainly in the earlier concertos of this set). There is also a good deal of Handel's own earlier music that is reused or reworked in these concertos, but two then current works in particular are echoed: his Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, completed only days before he began work on the first of his Opus 6 concertos (the Ode itself quoting from Muffat's Componimenti), and his next to last opera Imeneo, which was not yet completed at the time.

Concerto No. 1 in G Major
(completed September 29, 1739)

The first concerto of Opus 6 is one of the brightest and outgoing of the set. The stately music of the first movement, drawn in part from an earlier version of Handel's overture to Imeneo, leads through an unresolved cadence directly into the following Allegro. This pair of movements is followed by the similarly paired third and fourth movements, to which Handel adds an extra Allegro movement at the end. That final dance-like Allegro draws a good deal of its inspiration from Scarlatti's Sonata in G Major, K. 2, with some of Muffat's music playing a role, as well. Handel ingeniously reorders various motives of the Scarlatti sonata, preserving its binary form but producing in the process an essentially new work.

Concert No. 2 in F Major
(completed October 4, 1739)

The second concerto originally had six movements, instead of four, but Handel decided to shorten the work by eliminating its Andante second movement and its Allegro finale. Fortunately, since Handel often recycled his music rather than discarding it, the two excised movements turn up in other concerti, the Andante as the second movement of the third concerto and the Allegro as the final movement of the ninth.

The concerto opens with the kind of gracious melodic line that one could only associate with Handel. The halting adagio bars at the end of this first movement lead directly into an Allegro that begins like a lively Italian trio sonata. The unusual third movement alternates between two tempi and characters, a weighty Largo and a more flowing Larghetto andante e piano. The unresolved ending of this movement leads into a fugal finale. However, after beginning like a typical fugue, this last movement switches to brief solo episodes with a different type of music: long-note phrases with chordal accompaniments. Eventually these two kinds of music are superimposed and thus reconciled.

Concerto No. 3 in E minor
(completed October 6, 1739)

Following a brief but weighty opening Larghetto, there comes a curious fugal Andante, a movement that is evidently inspired by the last sonata (K. 30) of Scarlatti's Essercizi, the so-called "Cat's Fugue." Handel's main fugue subject with its bizarre intervals is almost an upside-down reproduction of Scarlatti's, and the 6/8 meter, as well as some of the figuration that comes later are identical in the two works. Nonetheless, they are quite differently worked out, and Handel's considerably shorter fugue is gentler in its effect. Following this interesting but convoluted music comes a straightforward Vivaldi-style Allegro, and as one might expect of Vivaldi, it is the solo first violin that predominates, rather than the trio of concertino instruments. The beautiful Polonaise, an extended dance movement, is richly scored, with crisscrossing figuration among the violins and with a drone in the lower parts that is reminiscent of the Musette in the sixth concerto. The work concludes with a very short dance-like movement that is a reworking of a rejected minuet from the composer's recent Ode for St. Cecilia. Here, however, it is not quite a typical minuet anymore. Its tempo marking (Allegro ma non troppo), its 6/8 meter, and its placement after the gentle Polonaise all suggest a somewhat faster and lighter piece.

Concerto No. 4 in A minor
(completed October 8, 1739)

The opening Larghetto affettuoso, a melodic movement with a gently pulsing accompaniment, leads into a contrapuntal Allegro. In the utterly simple and serene third movement Largo, the slow, beautiful counterpoint of the violins unfolds over a gentle walking bass line. For the following Allegro, Handel then reworks the aria "È si vaga del tuo bene" from his opera Imeneo, but the gracious thoughts expressed in the aria do not determine the character of this instrumental version. Here the violin writing and the placement of the movement as a finale after a Largo suggest a more spirited music, and Handel confirms this by changing the original Andante indication of the aria to Allegro.

Concerto No. 5 in D Major
(completed October 10, 1739)

The pair of movements that open this concerto -- the first with bright but stately dotted rhythms and the second with faster contrapuntal music -- form the two parts of a typical French overture, and indeed they did originally come from an overture. Handel lifted them in almost finished form from the overture to his recently completed Ode for St. Cecilia's Day. The third, fourth and fifth movements (Presto, Largo, and Allegro) are original pieces, although one feels the influence of Scarlatti on both the binary form and figuration of the Presto, and the brilliant Allegro does actually quote a Scarlatti sonata (K. 23). Originally, this concerto ended with that Allegro, but Handel later decided to add a sixth movement for which he once again turned to the overture of his St. Cecilia Ode. From it, he adapted the minuet that concludes the overture and added two variations to it. To some who are accustomed to flashy endings, this has seemed like an anticlimax after the preceding Allegro, but this gracious minuet fits a common Baroque tradition of ending with a gentle dance movement, one that we can see in other concerti in this set; and with the two variations added, the movement is substantial enough to make for a satisfying ending after the excitement of the Allegro.

Concerto No. 6 in G minor
(completed October 15, 1739)

Originally this concerto had only four movements, the first being the ones that we have now and the fourth being a Gavotte. Handel then removed the Gavotte and put two movements in its place, a substantial Allegro concerto movement and a shorter Allegro dance movement. The reason was doubtless to balance the central and most weighty piece in this concerto, the Musette, which is not only a slow movement but, being in Eb, is the only one not in the tonic key. The concerto opens with a tragic affettuoso movement followed by a simple, short fugue on a chromatic subject. The beautiful and unusually long Musette -- the title referring to a bagpipe, which Handel suggests by a drone in the bass -- was extraordinarily popular in Handel's time and was often played by itself. The brilliant Allegro that follows is like a concerto movement and features a solo violin. The concluding Allegro is a fast minuet, such as one finds in the concerti of Corelli and others.

Concerto No. 7 in Bb Major
(completed October 12, 1739)

This is the only concerto in Opus 6 that does not call for soloists in any of its movements. It is entirely orchestral, although Handel appears to have originally planned to have two solo violins in the third and fourth movements. He provided separate staves for those soloists in his autograph score but discontinued them shortly after the beginnings of the movements.

The opening Largo is a brief, ten-bar introduction that ends in the dominant and leads directly into the following Allegro. The memorable fugue subject of the Allegro, the first note of which is repeated 14 times in accelerating rhythms, creates a wonderful sense of propulsion throughout the movement.

Just as the first two movements are linked together, the third, fourth and fifth movements, in progressively faster tempos, are also connected. The Largo e piano consists of four phrases, each of which is ten bars in length and ends in a cadence. Following the last of these phrases (an exact repeat of the first), the movement could have ended, but Handel adds three transitional bars to lead into the following Andante. This Andante is essentially a melody piece, with the focus on the first violin line; the other instruments accompany with simple eighth notes for most of the movement, joining the dotted rhythms of the first violins only occasionally. At the end of this Andante, two transitional measures lead into the Hornpipe that concludes the concerto. This lively finale, with its wonderfully disjointed leaps and syncopated rhythms, is modeled on a hornpipe for harpsichord by Muffat.

Concerto No. 8 in C minor
(completed October 18, 1739)

The six movements of this concerto are, in a sense, really four, since the brief Grave and Adagio function as introductions to the longer movements which follow them. The opening Allemande is based on an allemande in G minor from Handel's third collection of harpsichord music. Here the light, two-voice texture of the original harpsichord version is reflected in the imitation between first violins and the bass line, while the second violins and violas add a simple accompaniment. However, Handel abandons his original model after the opening bars, as the original harpsichord piece is expanded and thoroughly rewritten for this concerto. Among other features new to this orchestral version are the surprising accented chords that abruptly change the key.

The second movement consists of an introductory Grave and an Andante allegro. The Grave is formed of two phrases of nearly identical material, after which comes a two-bar transition to the Andante allegro. The nervous motive in the violins and the quick walking bass line which open this Andante allegro were used by Handel some thirty years earlier for a quartet of conspirators in his opera Agrippina. Here, however, it is almost immediately interrupted by a smoother, less articulated music. The two affects are contrasted and occasionally superimposed throughout the movement, always propelled by a relentless eighth-note pulse.

The following Adagio, based on the famous aria Piangerò from Giulio Cesare, has sometimes been criticized for being too short and for abandoning the beautiful original aria after only a few bars in each phrase. But this very brief piece, which begins in Eb and ends in G minor, is clearly not meant to be an independent movement. It is an introduction to the more substantial Siciliana which follows, and the two together form a single two-part movement. The musical material of the Siciliana appears in several alternate versions of arias in Handel's Saul, Imeneo, and Solomon, but only in this concerto is it in a form that is often heard.

The concerto concludes with a short, simple, and quick movement in binary form. In this Allegro, some commentators hear the influence of one of Muffat's harpsichord pieces.

Concerto No. 9 in F Major
(completed c. October 26, 1739 -- no date in autograph)

For much of this concerto, Handel reworked material from his earlier compositions. While the opening Largo and the concluding Gigue are newly composed music, the middle movements are adapted from two consecutive movements of an organ concerto and two consecutive sections of an opera overture.

The Largo which opens the concerto is not a truly independent piece but simply a brief introduction leading into the following Allegro. That bright second movement is a reworking of the second movement of his Organ Concerto in F, known as "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," but here the striking cuckoo motive of the original is disguised and very much in the background. The Larghetto, with its dotted 6/8 siciliano rhythms, is similarly a reworking and extension of music from the same concerto. As in the organ version, it ends with a three-bar transition that leads into the next movement, but Handel does not continue with the organ concerto. Rather, he turns to his latest but not yet finished opera Imeneo as his source for the following Allegro, simply transposing the entire fast fugal section of the opera overture from G to F. The original opera overture concludes with a little menuet, and in this concerto too, Handel uses that menuet as the next movement, transposing the original down a step and altering only small details in the orchestration of the lower voices. This gentle Menuet is the only piece in the concerto in F minor, but its last phrase strikingly shifts to the major for a brighter ending. The Gigue which concludes the concerto is freshly composed music not modeled on earlier works, although the theme does bear a resemblance to the gigue of a Corelli concerto grosso in the same key, a piece which Handel would certainly have known. Originally Handel wrote this Gigue as the finale of the second concerto, but, when he shortened that work, he moved it here to the end of the ninth concerto.

Concerto No. 10 in D minor
(completed October 22, 1739)

The tenth concerto opens with a French overture: a powerful opening section with characteristic dotted rhythms and fiery thirty-second notes, followed by a quicker fugal section, and concluded by an extremely foreshortened (only six measures long) return to the more serious character of the opening. The Air that follows has sometimes been likened to a sarabande, perhaps because of its tempo. Although it does not have the characteristic rhythmic feel of that dance, it nonetheless requires a rhythmic pulse to maintain its sense of momentum.

The remainder of the concerto consists of three successive Allegro movements. The first of these has no soloists and is a relatively simple, short binary piece with repeats. The middle Allegro movement is longer and more complex, with virtuosic solo parts for the two violins. This D minor concerto then ends in D major with the concluding Allegro moderato. Like the first of the three Allegros, this final movement has no soloists and is relatively simple music, comprising a short binary theme with one variation. The theme begins very much like the aria L'aura non sempre spira from his opera Siroe, but the correspondence is so fleeting that it is difficult to say whether this is a conscious borrowing or the kind of unintentional similarity that can be found in the work of any prolific composer. Handel originally intended this movement as the finale of the twelfth concerto but transposed it from B major to D major, when he decided to move it to the end of this concerto.

Concerto No. 11 in A Major
(completed October 30, 1739)

Although it was published as the eleventh of this set of concertos, the date at the end of the autograph score indicates that this was actually the twelfth and last to be composed. By this time, Handel's publisher Walsh was pressuring him to finish the set, and Handel himself was under pressure to prepare for the upcoming concert season. It was perhaps for that reason that he decided to adapt most of this concerto from a pre-existing work, the Organ Concerto in A Major which he had first performed earlier in that same year. The organ version and the orchestral concerto are essentially the same music, the differences being mainly in small adaptations for the new medium, refinements of rhythmic details, and new inner voices for violas. Only the second movement Allegro of this concerto grosso is newly composed, and that music was later used by Handel as the model for a new organ concerto.

The concerto begins with two connected movements, a noble Andante larghetto, which leads into a faster, contrapuntal Allegro. This pair of movements is then followed by another pair: a very brief (6 bars long) Largo functions as an introduction to an extended Andante. The Largo is made up of a brief progression of chords separated by rests; in the original organ concerto version, Handel directs the organist to improvise figuration (organo ad libitum) on the harmonic skeleton that is written on the page. Following the Andante comes the finale, a substantial Allegro movement with a middle section and a full da capo repeat of the first part. Both these last two movements feature virtuosic writing for the first violin soloist.

Concerto No. 12 in B minor
(completed October 20, 1739)

The opening Largo and Allegro of this concerto form a double slow-fast movement, similar in many ways to the two parts of an overture. The Largo section is built on strong dotted rhythms, much like a French overture, and ends with a very brief transition to the Allegro. This faster music, however, sounds more Italianate, with ritornellos and virtuosic solo parts such as one might find in a concerto. The running opening motive of the Allegro derives from the aria Nel mondo e nell'abisso, which Handel originally composed for his opera Riccardo primo and which he used again in a later version of Tamerlano.

The beautiful, slow middle movement of this B minor concerto, a Larghetto in E major, has one of Handel's famous themes followed by a variation. It was deconstructed to fascinating effect in the 1967 work for orchestra Baroque Variations by Lukas Foss.

The concerto ends with another paired Largo and Allegro. This Largo is no more than a very brief introduction to the fugue which follows, but it creates a welcome buffer between the beautiful ending of the previous movement and the lively finale. It has no theme or development but is rather a "color piece," sustaining a single, beautiful orchestral sonority with gently pulsing eighth notes in the orchestra and overlapping sixteenth-note arpeggios in the solo instruments. Over its mere six measures, it moves slowly through an unstable and unpredictable harmonic progression to settle on the dominant harmony that leads into the following Allegro. That Allegro is a fugue, a somewhat severe one for Handel, perhaps because it borrows its subject from a fugue by his early teacher Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. The borrowing seems particularly apt, since it may well have been Zachow who first taught Handel the value of finding ideas in the works of other composers.

Originally, Handel ended this concerto with an Allegro moderato but then decided to move that movement to the end of the tenth concerto. That left the fugue as the final movement of this piece. When all twelve concertos were published as a collection, he placed this concerto at the end of the set, even though it was not the last to be composed. Thus the fugue based on Zachow's subject became the conclusion of the entire opus, perhaps an atypical ending for Handel but a touching tribute to his teacher of long ago.

Boston Baroque Performances

Back to resource library