page_title: Beecham-Handel suites
section_title: The Origin of Design, 1932
hierarchical_section_title: Beecham-Handel suites / The Origin of Design, 1932
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: La jeune corinthienne Callirrhoé dessinant le profil du berger son amant
context_page_description: The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made several orchestral suites from neglected music by George Frideric Handel, mostly from the composer's 42 surviving operas. The best known of the suites are The Gods Go a'Begging, The Origin of Design, The Faithful Shepherd, Amaryllis and The Great Elopement.
  Some of the suites were written as ballet scores; others were intended for concert use. Beecham made no attempt to emulate Handel's original instrumentation, and employed the full resources of the modern symphony orchestra, introducing such instruments as trombones, cymbals, triangles and harps into the orchestration. He made recordings of parts or the whole of all the above suites with the two orchestras with which he was principally associated, the London Philharmonic between 1932 and 1945 and the Royal Philharmonic thereafter.
  Both at the time and in the present day, Beecham's arrangements of Handel have divided opinion. Some critics have found the 20th-century orchestration inappropriate; others have praised Beecham for unearthing long-forgotten music and bringing it before the public.
context_section_description: In 1930 a suite based on Ariodante was announced, but did not appear. Melville-Mason suggests that Beecham used much of it instead in a ballet score for the Carmago Society, A Woman's Privilege, choreographed by Trudl Dubsky. It was a comedy about exchanged brides, and featured what The Musical Times described as "a pair of low comedy aunts" reminiscent of pantomime dames. The Daily Telegraph described it as "amiable nonsense full of sprightly movement, grotesquely at variance with the beauty and texture of the music". After the first performances, at the Savoy Theatre in November 1931, the ballet was not seen again.
  Much of the score for A Woman's Privilege was reused in The Origin of Design,  first given at the Savoy in June 1932. The ballet, choreographed by de Valois, and starring Lydia Lopokova and Anton Dolin, had a slender plot inspired by designs by Inigo Jones and adapted by de Valois from Carlo Blasis's treatise The Code of Terpsichore. The god Eros inspires the young Dibutade to draw for herself an image of her lover, Polydore – human kind has discovered art. In the second scene the drawing is carried to the court of Apollo and offered to the god in the presence of the nine Muses. The critic in The Times commented that the plot ran out long before the music. The New York Times said that the piece showed once more Beecham's "rare tact in translating old wine into new bottles."
  Beecham's musical assistant, Henry Gibson, worked with him on many of his arrangements, and is credited in the published score of this suite as the compiler and orchestrator. That score contains thirteen movements, of which Beecham and his newly-founded orchestra, the London Philharmonic, recorded ten in December 1932. They made further recordings from the score in 1933 and 1934. The main sources for this score were Ariodante, Il pastor fido, Rinaldo and the ballet music for Terpsicore.
  Movements in the 1937 published score.
  Scene 1
  Eros and Dibutade – Origin of Design
  1. Prelude – Allegro moderato
  2. Musette – Lentemente (Andante)
  3. Rondeau – Entrance of Eros and attendants Moderato giusto
  4. Pas de deux – Eros and Dibutade – Allegro moderato
  5. Air Lento– Change of scene – Lento espressivo
  Scene 2
  The Court of Apollo – The Dedication
  6. Ensemble and fughetta – Dibutade discovers Polydore at the Court of Apollo – Allegro; Presentation of Dibutade and her design to Apollo and the Muses –  Allegro scherzando
  6a Rondeau – Dance of Eros, joined by Polydore and Dibutade – Moderato
  7. Andante quasi allegretto – Polydore, Dibutade and their friends with the attendants on Eros
  8. Polydore's dance – Andantino
  9. Scherzo – Dibutade's dance – Vivace – Allegro (in this suite the movement is arranged for woodwind and pizzicato strings)
  10 Siciliano – Polydore and Dibutade – Andante; Gigue – Eros and attendants with Friends of Dibutade – Allegro
  11 Dance of the Muses – Allegro con brio
  12 Finale: The Court of Apollo – Allego – piu mosso – presto.
  This contrasts with the suite recorded by Beecham with the LPO in 1932:
  1. Bourrée (from Ariodante)
  2. Rondeau (from Ariodante)
  3. Gigue (from Terpsicore)
  4. Minuet (from Il pastor fido)
  5. Scherzo
  6. Sarabande
  7. Ensemble
  8. Musette (from Ariodante)
  9. Battle (from the "Sinfonia Bellica", Giulio Cesare and "Or la Tromba" and "Battaglia", Rinaldo) and Finale (from Ariodante).
caption: Dibutade ou l'Origine de la peinture, by Jean-Baptiste Regnault
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