Water Music

Suite No. 1 in F Major, HWV 348
Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349
Suite No. 3 in G Major, HWV 350

• These suites (or portions of them) were played in a royal performance on the River Thames on July 17, 1717.¹
  • On this occasion, King George I and his royal entourage traveled by barge from the Palace of Whitehall to Chelsea and back again.
  • The river journey was a public relations political event, one of several planned at that time to make King George I more visible to his subjects.
• Fun fact: the Water Music suites were the first orchestral pieces composed in England to include horns.²
• The suites consist mostly of Baroque stylized dances: a full list of movements may be found here.
• It is possible that Handel did not conceive this music as a set of three suites, but rather as one large collection. In the first published edition, movements from the G Major suite and the D Major suite are intermixed. The origin of arranging the movements by key may be a 1743 John Walsh publication of the Water Music in a keyboard arrangement.³
  • Try searching “John Walsh” in this Research Site to read more about the adventures of this London music publisher, who was generally less concerned about Handel’s artistic intentions than he was about making money.

“On Wednesday Evening [17 July 1717] at about 8, the King took Water at Whitehall in an open Barge… And went up the River towards Chelsea. Many other… Persons of Quality attended, and so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover’d; a City Company’s Barge was employ’d for the Musick, wherein were 50 Instruments of all sorts, who play’d all the way from Lambeth… the finest Symphonies, compos’d express for this Occasion, by Mr Handel; which his Majesty liked so well, that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in going and returning.”

The Daily Courant (London, 1717)⁴

1.  Anthony Hicks, “Handel [Händel, Hendel], George Frideric,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 11, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040060.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Quoted in “Water Music,” Handel & Hendrix in London, accessed March 11, 2021, https://handelhendrix.org/learn/learning-resources/handels-event-music/water-music/.