Suite No. 3 in G Major

The G Major/Minor Suite conjures up a wholly different world to the brassy outdoor music of the F and D major suites. All the movements are dances, with parallels to the ballet music in Handel’s operas of the mid 1730s. The overall mood is intimate and popular, and some of the individual pieces sound as though they had their origins in Handel’s chamber music. It’s here we find the most rustic sounds in the Water Music—quirkily so in the final pair of country dances to which Handel adds a squeaky-high recorder. Much of the impact comes from the unpredictable contrasts between movements. The opening dance movement has the graceful lilt of a sarabande, with its first violin gently warmed by the breathy voice of a flute—only to be wittily followed by a bounding rigaudon. Impetuous rather than elegant, Handel revels in the lurching rhythms of its dancing melody, which return all the more effectively after another of the composer’s contrasting diversions. About Handel’s Water Music Handel’s Water Music was written for a royal river party on the Thames in 1717 and belongs to an essentially French tradition of outdoor music. Deliberately popular in style, it relies on the appeal of sturdy dance tunes and military-style orchestration. On the basis of key and scoring, it actually breaks down into three suites: in F Major, calling for oboes, bassoons and horns alongside the strings; in D Major, with the addition of trumpets; and in G Major/Minor, where the strings are joined simply by a flute, recorder and bassoon. The very different character of these three suites suggests they had quite separate origins.