Programme note
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Organ Concerto No 13 in F 'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale' HWV 295 (1739)
Handel was described by one fellow composer as the greatest organist of his age. His contemporary John Hawkins wrote this of his playing:
"A fine and delicate touch, a volant finger, and a ready delivery of passages the most difficult, are the praise of inferior artists: they were not noticed in Handel, whose excellencies were of a far superior kind; and his amazing command of the instrument, the fullness of his harmony, the grandeur and dignity of his style, the copiousness of his imagination, and the fertility of his invention were qualities that absorbed every inferior attainment. When he gave a concerto, his method in general was to introduce it with a voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and firmness that no one ever pretended to equal."
This piece was premiered as part of Israel in Egypt at the Kings Theatre in the Haymarket in London in 1739. As ever, Handel also drew on his own earlier works and other people’s music in writing this concerto. The first and last movements are based on his own Trio Sonata, Op 5 No 6. The famous second movement, whose bird song gives the whole piece its nickname, lifts ideas from an aria from Giovanni Porta’s opera Numitore (which was certainly known in London as it was performed there in 1720) and a Capriccio sopra il CuCu by Johann Kaspar Kerll. Handle also marks several points in the piece where the soloist plays ‘ad libitum’ - at will.
© Svend Brown
