Twelve Concerti Grossi, for String Orchestra
No. 1, in G major No. 2, in F major No. 3, in E minor No. 4, in A minor No. 5, in D major No. 6, in G minor No. 7, in B flat major No. 8, in C minor No. 9, in F major No. 10, in D minor No. 11, in A major No. 12, in B minor
Handel apparently took a peculiar pride in his Concerti Grossi. He published them himself, and by subscription. They would probably be more popular today if all conductors realized the fact that music in Handel’s time was performed with varied and free inflections; that his players undoubtedly employed many means of expression. As German organists of forty years ago insisted that Bach’s preludes, fugues, toccatas, should be played with full organ and rigidity of tempo, although those who heard Bach play admired his skill in registration, many conductors find in all of the allegros of Handel’s concertos only a thunderous speech and allow little change in tempo. In the performance of this old music, old but fresh, the two essential qualities demanded by Handel’s music, suppleness of pace and fluidity of expression, named by Volbach, are usually disregarded. Unless there be elasticity in performance, hearers are not to be blamed if they find the music formal, monotonous, dull.
The twelve concertos were composed within three weeks. Kretzschmar has described them as impressionistic pictures, probably without strict reference to the modern use of the word “impressionistic.” They are not of equal worth. Romain Rolland30 finds the seventh and three last mediocre. In the tenth he discovers French influences and declares that the last allegro might be an air for a music box. Yet the music at its best is aristocratic and noble.
Handel’s twelve grand concertos for strings were composed between September 29 and October 30, 1739. The London Daily Post of October 29, 1739, said: “This day are published proposals for printing by subscription, with His Majesty’s royal license and protection, Twelve Grand Concertos, in Seven Parts, for four violins, a tenor, a violoncello, with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord. Composed by Mr. Handel. Price to subscribers, two guineas. Ready to be delivered by April next. Subscriptions are taken by the author, at his house in Brook Street, Hanover Square, and by Walsh.” In an advertisement on November 22 the publisher added, “Two of the above concertos will be performed this evening at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn.” The concertos were published on April 21, 1740. In an advertisement a few days afterwards Walsh said, “These concertos were performed at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and now are played in most public places with the greatest applause.” Victor Schoelcher made this comment in his Life of Handel: “This was the case with all the works of Handel. They were so frequently performed at contemporaneous concerts and benefits that they seem, during his lifetime, to have quite become public property. Moreover, he did nothing which the other theaters did not attempt to imitate. In the little theater of the Haymarket, evening entertainments were given in exact imitation of his ‘several concertos for different instruments, with a variety of chosen airs of the best master, and the famous Salve Regina of Hasse.’ The handbills issued by the nobles at the King’s Theatre make mention also of ‘several concertos for different instruments.’”31
The year 1739, in which these concertos were composed, was the year of the first performance of Handel’s Saul (January 16) and Israel in Egypt (April 4)—both oratorios were composed in 1738—also of the music to Dryden’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (November 22).
Romain Rolland, discussing the form concerto grosso, which consists essentially of a dialogue between a group of soloists, the concertino (trio of two solo violins and solo bass with cembalo) and the chorus of instruments, concerto grosso, believes that Handel at Rome in 1708 was struck by Corelli’s works in this field, for several of his concertos of Opus 3 are dated 1710, 1716, 1722. Geminiani introduced the concerto into England—three volumes appeared in 1732, 1735, 1748—and he was a friend of Handel.
It is stated that the word “concerto,” as applied to a piece for a solo instrument with accompaniment, first appeared in a treatise by Scipio Bargaglia (Venice, 1587); that Giuseppe Torelli, who died in 1708, was the first to suggest a larger number of instruments in a concerto, and to give the name concerto grosso to this species of composition. But Michelletti, seventeen years before, had published his Sinfonie e concerti a quatro, and in 1698 his Concerti musicali, while the word “concerto” occurs frequently in the musical terminology of the seventeenth century. It was Torelli who, determining the form of the grand solo for violin, opened the way to Archangelo Corelli, the father of modern violinists, composers, or virtuosos.
Romain Rolland insisted that the instrumental music of Handel has the nature of a constant improvisation, music to be served piping hot to an audience, and should preserve this character in performance. “When you have studied with minute care each detail, obtained from your orchestra an irreproachable precision, tonal purity, and finish, you will have done nothing unless you have made the face of the improvising genius rise from the work.”