Royal Illuminations

Seldom is a program so thematically interwoven as this, where celebratory images of flowing water and dazzling light radiate outward from an evocative song cycle on French poetry.

Familiar works by George Frideric Handel bookend this festive program. First, two suites from his Water Music. This collection of instrumental works was written to accompany King George I on a royal barge ride on the River Thames in 1717. London is famously rainy. And cold. And the Thames is famously wet. And stinky. Combine that with the lower global temperatures of the so-called Little Ice Age, and we can imagine that this floating concert — even in the middle of July — was no walk in the park.

The wooden flutes, recorders, and oboes would have become quickly saturated (making them softer and risking cracks), while the animal-gut strings of the orchestra would have had no hope of remaining in tune given the moisture. It is no small wonder, then, that Handel called upon horns — for the first time in an English orchestral work — and trumpets to fill out the orchestration. These brass instruments are less affected by the elements and could carry much farther across the water, drowning out any less-than-savory sounds from the disadvantaged winds and strings.

As with Music for the Royal Fireworks at the end of this concert, Handel’s Water Music Suites comprise assorted short movements — many of them in familiar dance forms — with two or three distinct, contrasting sections that could easily be repeated or omitted to fill time as the King floated down the Thames.

Environmental challenges aside, contemporary reports lauded the floating performance, and the King himself enjoyed multiple encores throughout the evening. (Rest assured that the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra will present a pitch-perfect performance, safe inside the climate-controlled walls of Severance Music Center!)

Like Handel, Benjamin Britten was the leading British composer of his generation, with his fair share of official commissions for King and country. Les Illuminations, however, was not one of them. Written long before his days in the cultural establishment, this collection of orchestral songs sets proto-surrealist texts by French poet and traveler Arthur Rimbaud.

Britten began composing the piece in England in March 1939, completing it in New York the following October. It was one of the first pieces he — an avowed pacificist — wrote while living and working in America with tenor Peter Pears, before returning to England in 1942. Almost from the time they were introduced in 1937, Pears and Britten were inseparable artistic, romantic, and life partners. It was Pears who gave the French premiere of Les Illuminations in April 1945, and it is to Pears that Britten dedicated the movement “Being Beauteous.” (The work can alternatively be performed by soprano soloist, as it will be at this weekend’s performances.)

Britten underlines the inscrutable nature of Rimbaut’s texts by turning a line from “Parade” into a refrain that is sung three times (in “Fanfare,” in “Interlude,” and in the closing of “Parade” itself): “J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage” (I alone have the key to this savage parade). The other movements seamlessly capture the contrasting characters of Rimbaud’s texts.

“Villes” thrums with the hubbub of cities foreign and mythical, akin to the blustering bravado of the small-town queen in “Royauté.” “Phrase” is serene and eerie, with string harmonics giving way to an elegant glissando in the solo voice. Later in the suite, “Being Beauteous” shares a similarly crystalline simplicity.

Britten dedicated the overtly sensual “Antique” to a former flame, Wulff Scherchen. It plays out primarily as a duet between solo voice and solo violin, in intertwining melodies. The singer is tasked with Handelian vocal pyrotechnics in “Marine,” rushing up and down tumbling scales as they sing of shimmering chariots and sparkling whirlpools. “Départ” attempts to wash away the images of the previous poems, but Britten’s setting makes it feel like a dark somnambulation itself. If this is waking, one yearns for the vibrance of the dreams once more.

Despite the dazzling imagery in Rimbaud’s poetry, the title is not meant to evoke light. Rather, poet Paul Verlaine’s prologue to Rimbaud’s 1886 collection explains that, in English, Illuminations means “colored plates” — like the fantastical drawings in the margins of a medieval manuscript. It is an apt comparison. Rimbaud’s mythical, fragmented, erotic imagery indeed feels like being transported into Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.

Stacy Garrop, too, was inspired by visual imagery when composing Spectacle of Light. The piece was originally sparked by an illustration of the light show that accompanied Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749. Garrop explains, “I was intrigued by the manner in which the etching’s artist represented the path of each individual firework, starting with an upward trajectory of a golden streak of light … blooming into glittering specks before flickering out.” In addition to explosive imagery, she borrows the sound of Handel’s music, quoting him directly in several places. The result is an exuberant blending of old and new, of visual and auditory, that — like any fireworks display — is over in the blink of an eye.

Garrop’s Baroque source material closes this evocative evening. Written three decades after his Water Music, Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks came with its own environmental woes. The music and accompanying light show were organized to celebrate King George II’s role in ending the War of Austrian Succession in 1748. As in 1717, the festivities took place on the banks of the Thames and lasted well into the night. But this time, finicky instruments were the least of the musicians’ worries.

About halfway through the event (which lasted from 7 PM to 3 AM), the ceremonial platform caught fire and burned for several hours. The festivities continued in spite of the blaze and, as long as the King remained in attendance, the musicians played. One can only hope no errant sparks drifted over the orchestra — bows and reeds make quick kindling! Thankfully, the fireworks during this evening’s performance will be strictly metaphorical — and the thunderous applause will be the only thing bringing the house down.

— Ellen Sauer Tanyeri

Ellen Sauer Tanyeri is The Cleveland Orchestra’s Archives & Editorial Assistant.