page_title: Organ concertos, Op. 4 (Handel)
section_title: Handel's chamber organs
hierarchical_section_title: Organ concertos, Op. 4 (Handel) / Origins / Handel's chamber organs
caption_attribution_description: Covent-Garden Theatre: This engraving was published as Plate 27 of Microcosm of London (1808) (see File:Microcosm of London Plate 027 - Covent Garden Theatre.jpg).
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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".
  In March 1735 the London Daily Post and General Advertiser announced that Handel had decided to incorporate in later performances of Deborah "a large new Organ, which is remarkable for the Variety of Curious Stops, being a new Invention, and a great Improvement of that Instrument." Although the maker of that instrument or its successors remains unknown, the dynamic markings in the detailed organ parts for Alexander's Feast suggest a single manual organ with six stops rather than four. Whoever the organbuilder, Handel added a codicil to his will in 1757 bequeathing to John Rich his "Great Organ which stands at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden."
caption: Interior of theatre at Covent Garden in 1808 with Handel's organ on the stage
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