page_title: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Handel)
section_title: Reception and influence
hierarchical_section_title: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Handel) / Reception and influence
caption_attribution_description: English: A concert in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens 1732
context_page_description: The Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, or Twelve Grand Concertos, HWV 319–330, are 12 concerti grossi by George Frideric Handel for a concertino trio of two violins and violoncello and a ripieno four-part string orchestra with harpsichord continuo. First published by subscription in London by John Walsh in 1739, in the second edition of 1741 they became Handel's Opus 6. Taking the older concerto da chiesa and concerto da camera of Arcangelo Corelli as models, rather than the later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio Vivaldi favoured by Johann Sebastian Bach, they were written to be played during performances of Handel's oratorios and odes. Despite the conventional model, Handel incorporated in the movements the full range of his compositional styles, including trio sonatas, operatic arias, French overtures, Italian sinfonias, airs, fugues, themes and variations and a variety of dances. The concertos were largely composed of new material: they are amongst the finest examples in the genre of baroque concerto grosso.
context_section_description: If the epithet grand, instead of implying, as it usually does, many parts, or a Concerto requiring a great band or Orchestra, had been here intended to express sublimity and dignity, it might have been used with the utmost propriety; for I can recollect no movement that is more lofty and noble than this; or in which the treble and the base of the tutti, or full parts, are of such distinct and marked characters; both bold, and contrasted, not only with each other, but with the solo parts, which are graceful and chantant. Nor did I ever know such business done in so short a time; that movement contains but thirty-four bars, and yet nothing seems left unsaid; and though it begins with so much pride and haughtiness, it melts at last into softness; and, where it modulates into a minor key, seems to express fatigue, languor and fainting.
  — Charles Burney, 1785, writing of the opening movement of Op. 6, No. 1.
  Handel's twelve grand concertos were already available to the public through Walsh's 1740 solo organ arrangements of four of them and through the various editions of the full Opus 6 produced during Handel's lifetime. Twenty-five years after Handel's death, a Handel Commemoration was initiated in London by George III in 1784, with five concerts in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon. These concerts, repeated over the next few years and establishing an English tradition for Handel festivals in the nineteenth century and beyond, were on a grand scale, with huge choruses and instrumental forces, far beyond what Handel had at his disposal: apart from sackbuts and trombones, a special organ was installed in the Abbey with displaced keyboards. Nevertheless, excerpts from four of his grand concertos (Nos. 1, 5, 6 and 11), originally conceived for baroque chamber orchestra, were performed at the first commemoration; Op. 6, No. 1, was played in its entirety at the fourth concert in Westminster Abbey. They were described in detail by the contemporary musicologist and commentator Charles Burney in 1785. Three years later Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart incorporated the Musette from Op. 6, No. 6, and a short Largo from Op. 6, No. 7, into his reorchestration of Acis and Galatea, K 566.
  Like Handel's organ concertos, in the nineteenth century his concerti grossi Op. 6 became widely available in versions for piano solo, piano duet and two pianos. Breitkopf and Härtel published two piano arrangements of four of the concertos by Gustav Krug (1803–1873). There are piano duet versions by August Horn (1839–1893), Salamon Jadassohn (1831–1902), Wilhelm Kempff, Richard Kleinmichel (1846–1941), Ernst Naumann (1832–1910), Adolf Rutthardt (1849–1934), F. L. Schubert (1804–1868) and Ludwig Stark (1831–1884). There also arrangements of several for piano solo by various composers, including Gustav Friedrich Kogel (1849–1921), Giuseppe Martucci (1856–1909), Otto Singer (1833–1894) and August Stradel (1860–1930), who arranged the whole set.
  In the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg, a composer openly antipathetic to Handel but at a turning point in his musical career, "freely arranged" the Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 7, in his Concerto for string quartet and orchestra (1933). Schoenberg's compositional processes have been discussed in detail by Auner (1996), who also provides a facsimile of Schoenberg's heavily annotated copy of the original score.
caption: Thomas Rowlandson: Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, where Handel's music was often performed in the open air. The Jubilee of 1786 included one of his Grand Concertos.[23]
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