David Starkey's MUSIC & MONARCHY 3. Great British Music

Oh [Music] give or take the odd note and the gender of the monarch of course Britons have been singing this since 1745 making ours the oldest national anthem in the world in this series I'm exploring how the monarchy has shaped the story of British music they consent to produced more than its fair share the patriotic classes yet this was a time when the monarchy had never looked more fragile [Music] it had lost much of its political and religious power it imported its ruling house from abroad and it was under constant threat from rival claimants from vicious family feuding even from madness this was the age when Britain became the world's leading power nevertheless much of the century was spent searching the music that would reflect that new status [Music] one musician would eventually rise to the challenge writing music for the corniche the world fireworks and operas and oratorios for British audiences and yet the man who gave Great Britain its musical voice came like the new royal dynasty from Germany you [Music] in 1707 the newly finished son Paul's Cathedral was a setting for a majestic ceremony presided over by Queen am the last of the Stuart dynasty the event being marked was momentous he cried out for triumphant classic of royal music Han came here repeatedly to celebrate stunning military victories over the French which were turning her nation into Europe's greatest power but the achievement of her reign that Anne was most proud of was a peaceful one the Union in 1707 of England and Scotland under a single crown and Parliament the result was no less than the forging of the new nation Great Britain and an celebrated by holding the grandest Thanksgiving service a reign here in st. Pauls no fewer than three composers were commissioned to provide the music William Croft John Blow and Jeremiah Clark this is just a little of what they came up with [Music] you use don't feel embarrassed if you don't recognize it it hasn't been performed for centuries this fragment by William Croft is in fact all that survived from the occasion [Music] so why given the significance of the Act of Union in British history has its celebratory music being so completely forgotten cross anthem Falls opus is short as the herald of a new nation now there are excuses of course the words of lovers brethren are banal and utterly fail to set the world on fire as rather curiously did the event itself the Act of Union of 1707 is of major political and constitutional significance but that unlike say some spectacular military victory is hardly the stuff the musical inspiration [Music] the grand celebrations of 1707 might look like business as usual in fact they are the last gasps of a dying tradition in earlier centuries the very greatest English music had been created by the musicians of the Monarchs personal choir the Chapel Royal for sacred ceremony in the 18th century however par have clearly shifted away from the monarchy and the church and music followed it London is certainly by this point the richest city in Western Europe and it's also a city at which to a quite unusual extent acts as a national capital it sucks the whole of the English elite into it London then has to feed this appetite for pleasure for leisure leisure is a function of wealth you therefore need what theatres what audiences flock to see was exotic flamboyant and fashionable Italian opera and in 1710 the enthusiasm and the wealth of London's new opera goers drew a 27 year old German to the city [Music] georg friedrich händel had spent three years studying opera in italy his debut work for the london stage was called ronaldo and it was an instant hit [Music] let me whip my cruel fate in sigh for liberty this great lament is sung by Alma Rana the heroine of the Opera who's just been entrapped along with the hero Rinaldo by the snares of the wicked sorceress Armida queen of Damascus it's a tale of derring-do and high passion sediments the delights of the fabled East it gave handle the opportunity to show his talents genius rather as a composer conductor and hots accord soloist handle never looked back [Music] Renaldo is the first Italian opera to be specifically written for the English stage Handel's librettists come in pasaría Aaron Hill made the most of the fact in his dedication of the Opera to the Queen herself proclaiming that this opera was a native of your Majesty's dominions was consequently born your subject it's a funny kind of British subject isn't it that's written by a German and sung in Italian but Queen Anne welcomed this immigrant music in February 17 eleven Handel and his Italian singers was summoned to sum James's Palace to perform for her birthday the majesty was reported to be extremely well pleased with his music some of her subjects however were less seduced from foreign insult save this English stage no more the Italians squalling tribe admit in tongues unknown tis potpourri in wit the learned author of these words Richard Steele walls no xenophobic Philistine he went on to found the spectator but like many in proudly Protestant Great Britain he was suspicious of anything which savored of Catholicism the souls theirselves confess from Rome they bring and tis high mass or do you know they sing instead steel would invoke Britain's new greatness and Paul for native culture whose distinction would match its military power let Anna soil be known for all its charms as famed for liberal sciences as arms let those division meet who would advance manners or speech from Italy or France let them learn you would your favor fie and English be the language of mankind this search for native music worthy of the greatness of Britain will be one of the crucial factors determining the development of music in the 18th century the man who gave Great Britain its voice however would turn out to be the very same German who was writing Italian operas in 1711 Handel began studying the English language and its music in 1713 he was able to present this to Queen Anne [Music] [Music] this is the English or rather the anglicized handle eternal source of light divine is a birthday ode which is an English form the words are English by the sentimental poet Ambrose Phillips even the musical forces were English too as handle originally wrote this for a favorite counter tenor of the Chapel Royal accompanied by trumpet in the manner of Purcell but the melodic genius which has led the piece to be appropriated by great Sopranos and sung with gusto like this was handles own [Music] it is a tricky piece to sing it has incredibly long phrases and the point of handle is not to try and sing it in one breath the point is to give it the beauty deserves in this space that he really wrote into those bars [Music] it was written very much in the English style Handel is pretty much trying to emulate Purcell and you can really hear that been the simplicity of it there's a lovely distance between the singers notes and those are the orchestra and I think that gives you a lovely gap which is so typical of English music English music just has a depth and yet a simplicity a sort of transparency which the Italian music tends to fill with notes [Music] Han rewarded handle with a royal pension handsome 200 pounds a year barely three years after arriving in England he had already overshadowed homegrown talents a process that would accelerate when the monarchy to cease to be homegrown in 1714 another German stepped off the boat here at Greenwich in July queen anna died aged 49 without having produced any children who lived to adulthood Parliament had ruled out a Catholic successor then and forever so the new King of Great Britain was gay old Ludwig elector of Hanover and as James the first great-grandson Ann's closest living Protestant relation the House of Hanover had begun this allegorical wall painting shows George arriving here in a Roman triumph his ground a faintly preposterous to our eyes but the reality was much more sober George arrived at night and in ordinary traveling clothes but at least his taste in music was magnificent and as King of Great Britain he could afford to indulge it on July the 17th 1717 King George headed down the river in a royal barge next to his boat traveled another bard with 50 musicians it was the premiere of Handel's water music George already knew and liked Handel's music since before the composer came to London it already held a post as head of George's Chapel Royal in Hammond at this time Handel was to make his music bigger better louder [Music] handled heavily scored the music with instruments loud enough to carry across the water trumpets ubers bassoons flutes and violins for volume and novelty value he also used German hunting horns Handel's music was an instant hit both with the king who liked it so much that he commanded the musicians to repeat him twice and with the public who climb up to here some of them lining the banks others crowding on nearby phones [Music] the scene must have resembled its later color letter image of a regatta on the Thames the water music is a masterpiece it's also perhaps the first example royal music being used in the spectacle which had no spiritual or even very much obvious ceremonial clothes instead what George have done is to take the River Thames ear and to turn it into a theatre come concert with himself and his subjects as an enthusiastic audience it was a turning point for George his Hanoverian successors royal ceremony and his musical accompaniment deprived any kind of religious or even very much national res on death would become merely gloriously theatrical and it was in the theatre that King George would spend much of his time Oh in person George the first could be stiff reticent and/or but he enjoyed nothing more than the high passions of opera especially when written by Handel [Music] during the single season George attended half of the 44 opera performances at the King's Theatre in London's Haymarket in Hannover Georgia been unable to afford his own Court Opera the London theatre however provided new commercial opportunities for sponsoring his favorite kind of music [Music] in 1719 George the first put up seed money for a new opera company called grandiosely the Royal Academy of Music it was based here in Haymarket in the newly developing West End of London George's contribution amounted to a thousand pounds a year for seven years where the king led members of the nobility were happy to follow and stump up substantial subscriptions as well this wasn't a court opera in continental style rather it was a commercial venture with the king as patron impresario George could handle in charge of the Royal Academy and sent him overseas to recruit the finest singers Handel's prize cash was the most famous singer of the day celestina the Italian castrato he was lured to London by a salary the thousand pounds for single season that's pushing a million in today's money but then sin escena had paid the ultimate price himself castration before puberty which left him without normally long limbs and a voice of childlike purity and man-like power [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] sena Cena's performance in giulio cesare was praised by London newspapers ours beyond all criticism though is vanity and insolence provoked the equally short-tempered handle to call him a damn fool he certainly pulled in the crowds however appearing in 13 Handel operas during his first 8 year stint in London the Italian opera was massively popular there was a huge public for it and the public at that time was was a very very different kind of public from the the Opera audience that you would have today it was almost an orgy and anything could happen in the Opera House they wouldn't necessarily pay attention the whole time they would go to hear a certain singer or if they'd been once or twice before they would know which are as they liked in which were that they would pay attention to they had box they had boxes they anything writing things anything could happen so it was it was an incredibly different kind of theatre experience the way used to today of course it were fierce fierce factions weren't those for particular singers with each other like soccer particular singers would have a following I think that so there will be a minis an incredibly good comparison with with us with us like a soccer crab [Music] humble wrote of the 40 operas in the early decades of the 18th century the royal and aristocratic appetite for Italian opera was insatiable moreover the desire for novelty meant that composers had to come up with new works all the time fortunately Handel was well suited to this kind of environment as he was able to knock out an Italian opera in a matter of weeks rather than months you handle success both in the theater and a court made him a rich man and he took up residence in this fine Mayfair townhouse he'd embraced life in Britain just as Britain then braced his talent the same could not be said however for the monarchy served King George the first here despite his years as King of Great Britain never became remotely British because he was a member of an international court culture that made love war and peace in French which George spoke perfectly and sang in Italian in the operas which George adored and that Handel composed in 1727 George died and was buried fittingly perhaps in Hanover George the first musical legacy lies in music written for pleasure rather than grounds ceremony towards a second however was very different george ii actually enjoys ceremony and he produces the most impressive musical coronation in the whole of the history of the coronation he was crowned in October 17:27 and on this occasion Westminster Abbey served not just as the royal church but also as the grandest of grand concert [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] Oh Oh [Music] there were two contenders to write the music dr. Maurice Greene the newly appointed master of the Kings music and Handel president dictated the green should get the task as a leading member of the Royal musical household but Handel was well-placed to and also perhaps not coincidentally he'd just be naturalized as a British subject but what determine matters were Georgia seconds characteristically violent prejudices according to his grandson George the third he considered poor green to be a wretched little crooked insignificant ill-natured writer player and musician for bad him absolutely to have anything to do with the coronation music and instead gave the honor to handle [Music] the for Coronation anthems he wrote for the occasion or a major step towards finding a musical voice for Great Britain handle addressed head-on a paradox which had troubled the Protestant Church of England since its creation nearly two centuries earlier [Music] [Music] the English Reformation with its single-minded emphasis on the pure unadulterated Word of God that being the great enemy of music Handel changed all that more imaginatively than any Englishman he responded to the power and poetry of the key texts of the Church of England to invent a new musical language the texts of the coronation anthems were traditionally taken from those to great achievements of the English Reformation the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible the verses were we added by the Archbishop of Canterbury to suit the circumstances of each coronation but in 1727 the archbishop the story goes was stunned to be told by Handel I have read my Bible very well and should choose for myself and he did ruthlessly editing down the text and rearranging the verses to serve his own musical ends he was searching for words and ideas that were royal and that he could then orchestrate royally [Music] what you get with Zadok the priest is the most wonderful musical coup d'etat yatra you get a very very long sort of slow burning introduction which has an immediate sense of dignity and a sort of gliding undulating pulsating building up musical tension through harmonic means [Music] and it builds up and builds up and builds up tension until the choir comes in as one voice with the word Zadok and the letter Z believes a Dok song by all the choir at once with the addition at that moment of the trumpets and the drums provides a sub spine-tingling effect [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] combination of this majestic musical language with English biblical texts was one that Handel would return to for the rest of his career most famously for his oratorio Messiah who proved as glorious in the service of the heavenly King they did here for the Hanoverian monarchy [Music] you [Music] Oh Zadok the priest with its resounding repeating acclamations of gods saved the king would have been the perfect national anthem if it weren't so damn difficult to sing [Music] indeed for several decades following it served much the purpose of the yet to be written national anthem and headed the program at countless concerts where it was described as the coronation anthem or even the anthem god save the king [Music] Oh [Music] panel was an opera composer but I think he captured more than many of his predecessors the sense of transcendent moment and the drama of the occasion almost painting it in musical terms a bit like erm sort of the epics of Cecil B DeMille or something like that it had this huge scale in the sense of kind of really portraying the significance and the sense of occasion in musical language [Music] [Music] giorgia seconds coronation was remarkable that own liver it's magnificent music but for the conspicuous absence of George's son and heir Frederic would be bound from attending Frederick Lee loved music he's pictured here playing the cello in front of the palace he made his own cue he had rather less love for his parents they clashed about everything from the size of Frederick's allowance to politics so when in 1740 Frederick commissioned a new musical work he did not employ his father's favorite composer Handel instead he chose handles closest rival Thomas armed like handle on wrote for the theater unlike handle his productions were in English and he was too on road the music for private entertainment stage in the grounds of the princes Country Estate Clifton the event was supposed to celebrate the birthday of Frederick's three-year-old daughter Augusta in reality it had much more to do with Frederick's own political ambitions now openly estranged from his father draws a second frigate was keen to establish his own political identity so he launched a carefully orchestrated campaign to present himself as the Patriot Prince supporting a ruthless expansion of British power abroad the musical performance itself took place here in this amphitheater overlooking the wooded valley of the Thames the audience sitting on the terraces here was kinda like I'll they have been summoned to see and hear the centerpiece of Frederick's Patriot Prince campaign everything was to be English hence the choice of for an English mask rather than an Italian opera of the composer the English arm rather than the German handle and above all of the subject the Anglo Saxon King Alfred Alfred was cultured and learn it he was an heroic defender of his people against a barbarian invader and the founder of the Navy Alfred the only English King to be called great would be Frederick's model only Frederick would be greater because he would be ruler not of England but of Britain Great Britain Wayne tabria time for a start heavens come on au fromage D as your main Rosa Rosa Rosa throw about the ah you mean this was the Charter the Charter of the land and go sighing this train returned your return you're all the waves never shall be slaves [Music] when Rule Britannia is sung that the last night of the Proms it seems like a straightforward if tub-thumping expression of national prime if you now realize though it was created to criticize not celebrate the reigning monarch [Applause] four years later arns tune was taken up by still fiercer opponents of Georgia second it was sung by a rebel army marching south from Scotland who wanted to put a Catholic King back on Britain's throne in the form of Bonnie Prince Charlie London waited nervously from one of its theatres however came a statement of support the embattled King George a second thanks once again to the entrepreneurial Thomas R 28th of September 1745 here on this site in the old Theatre Royal Drury Lane three of London's favorite singers came on stage in front of the curtain at the end of the performance and there to raise people's spirits in this time of crisis and emergency they sang an old tune with new words and in a new arrangement by our it was greeted with tears Cheers and thunderous encores as the week's went by the numbers of performers swelled and a chorus of twenty would appear to sing it to a similar rousing reception at the end of each performance it was of course god save the king [Music] funky [Music] cause [Music] me [Music] Oh [Music] Oh [Music] yes [Music] by the end of the 18th century god save the king was firmly established as the national anthem making britain the first country in europe to have such a patriotic hen suppose is the realest piece of music of them all but it had originated not in an official commission but instead in an instantaneous response to a political and military crisis and it depended on the public not royal patrons for its initial success Oh we fit Oh [Music] public tastes also determined the initial success of a work was first heard three years later not in court nor a church but in public parks it was Handel's music for the Royal Fireworks and such was the composer's fame by the mid 18th century even its rehearsal stopped the traffic the rehearsal took place on this very spot now it's a scrubby patch of green then it was the heart of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens whose verdant avenues and pretty pavilions were the principal place at public entertainment in 18th century London on the day of the rehearsal London came to a standstill there was a three-hour coach jam on London Bridge as some 12,000 people struggled to get here 12,000 people that's probably the largest audience that had yet listened to a piece of music anywhere in Europe but then everything about this occasion was on an epic scale it was commissioned to mark the end after 8 long years of the war of Austrian succession the peace treaty proved unpopular however since the British agreed to give up many of the colonial gains lead one from the friends to win over skeptical popular opinion the government turned to the well-tried technique at bread and circuses and decided to throw a grand fireworks party it was a theatrical idea that was executed in a thoroughly theatrical fashion a 400 foot long set was built in Greene Park the site of the official celebrations presiding over it all was a giant Sun representing george ii and proclaiming Viva Rex long live the king actually neither the event nor the music were the Monarchs idea but handler being commissioned George made it clear what he wanted martial music handle responded by scoring it for three pairs of kettle drums nine trumpets nine horns twenty four overs and twelve bassoons he described it as a grand overture of warlike instruments it might seem a paradoxical choice for celebrating a peace treaty but George was a king would seen battle the last British monarch to do so when he personally led the troops but getting him in 1743 he sees himself as a soldier he wants his monarchy to have the sound of the soldier King to have the sound of the drums and the trumpets and the halls that lead men into battle despite Handel's efforts however the farmers themselves were rather less than a triumph the king inspected the gigantic set as Handel's music played then the fireworks themselves began but first all went well and the Rockettes who were much out loud but then suddenly part of the wooden said caught fire with great difficulty it was extinguished but the delay through the whole timing out and the event which had aroused such expectations dribbled on to an inglorious close the Royal Fireworks had begun as theater they ended as fast in the midst of the chaos however Handel's music established beyond doubt another characteristic of Great Britain's musical identity drops volume of all things military but handle was to make an even more important contribution to our musical culture and for this he took inspiration once more from the theatre now though he was creating very different productions from those that jaws the first and loved so much after 1741 Handel stop writing Italian opera altogether it was ruinously expensive to stage but had almost bankrupted him despite his shrewd commercial instincts instead he concentrated on english-language oratorio a less elaborate concert drama which married operatic techniques to English sacred texts [Music] [Music] [Music] usually performed without sets costumes action the oratorio was much cheaper to stage he could be performed on religious feast days but the theaters were otherwise dark whilst the biblical stories on which it was normally based appealed to the religiosity of an important new audience not to the amoral cosmopolitan aristocracy who'd been the great patron of Handel's Italian operas but instead to the ever more prosperous numerous and politically powerful middle class who grew and thrived in the long economic boom of Georgian England these people were English and they were proud of it the subjects of Handel's oratorio z' were more English than they look to on the surface judas maccabees was a story of an Old Testament military leader who heroically defeats rebellion and unites at doubting people the audience of Covent Garden premiere in 1747 would have instantly thought of a much more contemporary figure Georgia seconds younger son the Duke of Cumberland who had just smashed the Jacobite army at : the parallel is made explicit in the dedication which refers to the Dugas truly wise valiant and virtuous commander Handel's oratorio had given voice to the nation's sense triumph and relief far more effectively than any Thanksgiving service [Music] the unique power of oratorio was its ability to dramatize the national myth of the new Holy Land Great Britain [Music] the season after season at the London theatres Handel would present a new installment the story of God's chosen people the righteous struggle of an electric knife [Music] [Music] you [Music] ah [Music] the idea of a divinely ordained monarchy no longer held sway in Hanover area in England instead it had been replaced by the idea of a divinely ordained nation auditorio was the soundtrack to this new ideology [Music] Auditorio combined religious zeal with a strident national pride it stood on its head the old Puritan objection to religious music that it brought the theatre into church by bringing religion triumphantly into the theatre and it would be elevated into a new national cult and given royal endorsement by the next and Varion King George the third [Music] unlike the previous Hanoverian monarchs this King George was actually born in Britain when he acceded to the throne in 1760 he proclaimed the Parliament born and educated in this country I glory in the name of Britain giorgia third believe that Britain should be as preeminent in the arts as in military power and Somerset house in whose magnificent courtyard I'm standing now is the monument to his cultural ambitions the North block was built at George's insistence as a kind of Clubhouse come exhibition space for the elite of Britain scientists artists and historians George who was a key musician himself was also the patron of the Academy of ancient music which was set up to study and perform the works of great composers of the British past and incomparably the greatest of them all in George's view was handled you one year before George the third came to the throne handler died at the age of 74 his passing was marked with something close to a state funeral he was buried in Westminster Abbey on a regal scale with 3,000 people in attendance many years before handled observed the young Prince George as that boy lives my music will never want to protect her George would fulfill that prophecy Georgia third kept a private band to play for him in both London and his favorite residence of Windsor its leader was the accomplished German violinist George Georg Griesemer each day it would seem the king gave him a playlist of the music that he would want to hear in the evening handful of these written in any scrap of paper that the king could find have survived and they consist of handle handle and handle and not just any old handle instead they cover the whole range of the composer's music overtures Concetta Grassi and movements from operas and oratorios from every decade of the composer's career in other words George not only loved Handel he really knew his music and here his hands on evidence in the King's Own handwriting and handles music was not nearly a private passion for Georgia third it also led him to put Westminster hobby to a quite unprecedented public use in 1784 four thousand of the richest most powerful and fashionable people in London packed into the newly decorated nave of Westminster Abbey here it was the biggest national event since George the Third's own coronation some 20 odd years previously but they didn't come to give Thanksgiving for great military victory or a royal anniversary instead they came to honor a musician plain mr. Handel and celebrate the supposed santino of his birth with a series of grand concerts of his works the king was chief patron of the event involved in everything from the program to the decorations and each day seated in a great gothic throne the king led the nation in homage to the man who'd given it its musical voice before the celebration began the royal family visited Handel's tomb nearby in the south transept to pay their respects then they possessed to their box and listened wrapped that Handel's Messiah was performed [Music] there is the story that explains why by the later 18th century it was customary when those the performance of Handel's Messiah that you actually rose for the Hallelujah Chorus and at some point the King must have risen and of course when the king gets to his feet everybody gets to his feet the reversals r astonishing music at the Abbey that once honored Kings now the king led the nation in worshipping music [Music] and music written to the glory of God became instead part of the cult of the musician [Music] Oh [Music] Oh [Music] the 1784 celebration is featured 250 singers and 250 instrumentalists the British had acquired taste the musical gigantism all the newspaper reports emphasize scale numbers power of sound so this is literally the music of a great power it's booming brass and sounding drum [Music] all the time the fusion of the sacred and the soldier the sacred and the military it becomes the language of ceremony [Music] the commemoration was repeated at the Abbey in following years with ever growing numbers of musicians and then replicated across the country to this day of course Messiah it's a favor to British choirs everywhere [Music] everything but handle gave to Great Britain is exemplified by this one work above all the way he uses the music to serve the power and a majesty of the English language itself [Music] it was the approach he'd first taken with the coronation anthems then perfected with the oratorios the beginning of the 18th century the Act of Union gave life to Great Britain by the end of the century the new superpower had at last found its musical voice thanks to handle and his royal patrons [Music] [Music] next time our story comes to its end the monarchy rediscovers its sacred role in response to scandal and crises royal pageantry is reinvented with spectacular success and royal patronage creates the greatest generation of British composers for several centuries and defines the sound of a nation in the age of Imperial [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Victor Alexiev

Views: 66,934

Keywords: David Starkey (Author), History, Music and Monarchy, Documentary (TV Genre), Television Documentary (TV Genre)

Id: e5ljF12IBIc

Length: 58min 59sec (3539 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2014