Handel-Water Music & Beethoven-Symphony No. 8 in F major Opus 93

January 2, 2016:  Tonight we welcome the New Year with Bach’s New Year Cantata, Handel’s Water Music and some Strauss Waltzes.  The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered on 17 July 1717 after King George I had requested a concert on the River Thames. The concert was performed by 50 musicians playing on a barge near the royal barge from which the King listened with close friends.. The barges, heading for Chelsea used the tides of the river. George I was said to have enjoyed the suites so much that he made the exhausted musicians play them three times over the course of the outing.  Bach’s Cantata BWV 143 features a short fanfare-like movement with the brass and strings playing brilliant roulades against the chorus coloratura. The recitative that follows sets up the gloomy text of the tenor aria, while the bass aria brings back the trumpets of the opening. The second tenor aria is interesting as a duet between the bassoon and the continuo. On top of this all of the strings play the chorale tune. The chorale makes its final appearance in the brilliant, glorious chorus that closes this brief and interesting cantata.  Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 is a symphony in four movements composed in 1812. Beethoven fondly referred to it as "my little Symphony in F," distinguishing it from his Sixth Symphony, a longer work also in F.