Handel’s festive Water Music first sounded during a royal boat trip on the Thames. The date was 17/7/1717. According to The Daily Courant‘s account, George I and his aristocratic guests sailed in their royal boat from Whitehall Palace to Chelsea. About 50 musicians sailed along in a second boat and provided the soundtrack. What happened on that royal boat hardly interests us any more, but the boat with musicians made history.
Numerous Londoners had cast off the mooring lines of their own vessels to get close to the festivities. According to the newspaper, the whole river was covered with boats and sloops. The king was so taken with Handel’s music that he wanted to hear it again on the return trip to London.
Besides Handel’s masterly orchestral music, B’Rock also plays his friend Telemann’s majestic overture Hamburger Ebbe und Flut. And concertmaster Evgeny Sviridov will take on the soloist’s role in Vivaldi’s delightful ‘Cuckoo’ concerto.
This production was realized with the support of the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government through Flanders Tax Shelter.
