Music for the Royal Fireworks

Ouverture

Bourrée

La Paix

La Réjouissance

Menuet I

Menuet II

By the middle of the 18th century Handel had become such an outstanding feature of English musical life that the first opportunity to hear something of his music for the Royal Fireworks, at Vauxhall in April 1749, attracted an audience of 12,000 and caused a three-hour traffic jam on London Bridge. And that was only the rehearsal, without fireworks. History does not record the traffic conditions at Green Park a week later when the official celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle took place, with elaborately organised firework displays and a band of 100 musicians to play Handel’s music. But we do know that one of the buildings in the park caught fire and that Chevalier Servandoni, designer of the “fireworks machine,” lost his temper, drew his sword on the Comptroller of his Majesty’s Fireworks and had to be hustled away.

Since the Green Park celebrations commanded by George II lasted from 6 to 11, and since the complete score lasts not much more than 20 minutes one must assume that it was played several times over or that other music was heard on that April evening – perhaps even some of the Water Music written for another great royal occasion in London 32 years earlier. Certainly, Handel’s music was greeted as a great success even though it is difficult to imagine it being presented as an actual accompaniment to fireworks. The splendid Overture, with its solemn slow introduction and festive Allegro, was presumably presented as a prelude to the proceedings, the delightful Bourée as an interlude and the pastoral La Paix as a symbol of the peace settled at Aix-la-Chapelle a few months. The brilliant Réjouissance (Rejoicing), on the other hand, might well have gone with fireworks. As for the two minuets at the end of the published score, it is doubtful that they were intended as a finale, stirring pieces though they are.