The Handel organ concertos, Op. 4, HWV 289–294, are six organ concertos for chamber organ and orchestra composed by George Frideric Handel in London between 1735 and 1736 and published in 1738 by the printing company of John Walsh. Written as interludes in performances of oratorios in Covent Garden, they were the first works of their kind for this combination of instruments and served as a model for later composers.
Quotations
Origins
Handel's six organ concertos were published in 1738 by John Walsh as the composer's Opus 4. The four concertos HWV 290–293 had been written to be played in the intervals of performances of his oratorios Esther, Deborah and Athalia in March and April 1735 in the newly opened theatre of John Rich in Covent Garden; the other two concertos HWV 289 and 294 served the same purpose in February and March of the following year for performances at the same venue of Alexander's Feast HWV 75, Handel's setting of John Dryden's ode.
The performances of Esther and Deborah were revivals, while Athalia was a reworking for its first London performance of a work first heard in Oxford in the summer of 1733. The violinist Festing and the composer Arne reported to the musicologist Charles Burney that Handel had included organ solos in the Oxford performances: he had "opened the organ in such a manner as astonished every hearer" and "neither themselves, nor any one of their acquaintance, had ever before heard such extempore, or such premeditated playing, on that or any other instrument."
Handel's prowess as an organist had already been demonstrated in Rome in 1707 in a contest with the composer Domenico Scarlatti, when his playing on the organ was rated higher than Scarlatti's playing on the harpsichord; his reputation as a great organist had already been established during his one-year position as cathedral organist in Halle in 1702. Handel's organ concertos thus have a special place in his oeuvre. They paved the way for Mozart and Beethoven, who like Handel achieved fame in their lifetimes as composers and performers of their own concertos.
In the sinfonias of some of his cantatas, Johann Sebastian Bach had already introduced concerto movements for organ and orchestra. However, Bach's organs in both Weimar and Leipzig were large organs with double keyboards and pedals, powerful instruments that could only dominate a baroque orchestra. Bach's organ writing in the sinfonias lacks the complexity of his writing for solo organ; it is in two parts, as if for harpsichord, with the bass line doubling the continuo. The small English chamber organs at Handel's disposal, with a single keyboard and no pedals, produced a softer sound that could be properly integrated with a small orchestra, making possible a unique form of concerto close to chamber music.
The precise reasons why Handel introduced this new musical form, the concerto for chamber organ and orchestra, have been discussed in detail by . He concludes that Handel, faced by financial difficulties in mounting Italian opera, exacerbated by a newly established opera company in fierce competition for an audience, decided to showcase himself as a virtuoso composer-performer, thus providing a rival attraction to the celebrated castrato Farinelli, the glittering star of his competitors.
Handel's chamber organs
Handel had begun to introduce the chamber organ into his oratorios in 1732 in order to reinforce the voices in the chorus. The oratorios Esther and Deborah include elaborate choruses drawn from his earlier Coronation Anthems. Deborah is scored for two harpsichords and two organs, one for each choir in the double chorus. Two solo arias in Deborah in which the organ doubles a solo transverse flute suggest organ-stops which could produce a soft timbre. Handel's instruments he used were most likely the single keyboard portable chamber organs with four stops constructed by John Snetzler, the leading organbuilder in London.
When Handel moved his company from the King's Theatre to the newly built theatre in Covent Garden, in autumn 1734, organs appeared explicitly for the first time in his operas. The danced prologue Terpischore HWV 8b performed there contains sumptuous scoring for alto recorders, violins, violas and pizzicato cellos with the bass and treble lines doubled by organs; Handel marked the score, "Les orgues doucement, e la Teorbe".