Monthly Archives: March 2021

Music

George Frideric Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (1749)

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The German-born George Frideric Handel moved to London in 1712 and remained there until his death in 1759. My first memory that involves Handel was a piece of music called Water Music, possibly from some sheet music my grandma had but equally possibly not (it’s one of those early “not sure where” memories). It was composed in 1717 in response to a request from King George I for a concert on the Thames. Handel was obviously well in with the Court; ten years after Water Music he was commissioned to write four anthems for the Coronation ceremony of King George II. One of these, the glorious Zadok the Priest, has been played at every British coronation ceremony since.

Another notable composition of Handel’s was Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749, written for a “party in the park” to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. Mozart called it a “spectacle of English pride and joy”. A year later, Handel arranged a performance of his famous Messiah to benefit Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital in London. The performance was considered a great success and was followed by annual concerts that continued throughout his life – an early forerunner of our “benefit concerts” today.

It is, however, Handel’s piece from his great opera Solomon, namely the opening instrumental of Act III, Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, that I’m showcasing today. If you don’t already know it from its name, you will instantly recognise it when you play it below. It has been used extensively for anything that could benefit from some vivacious “processional” music (including the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony in which the music accompanies Daniel Craig’s James Bond as he meets the Queen at Buckingham Palace) and you can hear why: it’s a joyous romp of violins and oboes.

The wider piece, Solomon, was widely recognised by commentators of the day as a eulogy for Georgian England, with the just and wise King Solomon representing King George II, and the mighty, prosperous kingdom of Israel reflecting the similarly happy state of England at the time of the work’s premiere. Also, since it was in English (Handel had written his operas in Italian up until Messiah in 1742), it became hugely popular with the public. So put some sandals on, grab your palm, and welcome the Queen of Sheba as she disembarks!

George Frideric Handel
Film, TV, and Theatre

Cosgrove Hall’s Pied Piper of Hamelin (1981)

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Alongside Aardman Animations, those brilliant stop-motion clay animators of Wallace and Gromit fame, another great favourite of the British public was Cosgrove Hall Films. Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall first met as students at Manchester’s College of Art and Design, and then worked together in television graphics at Granada Television. They left Granada in 1969 to form their first production company, Stop Frame Productions, making TV commercials, public information films and also the opening credits and graphics for TV classic Rainbow in 1972.

The Rainbow work led to Thames Television creating a subsidiary animation studio in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, in Manchester, with Cosgrove and Hall as its lead animators. Cosgrove Hall Films was born. Its first series, Chorlton and the Wheelies, was popular and ran from 1976 to 1979, but it was 1981’s Danger Mouse that spawned their greatest success, running throughout the rest of the eighties and being syndicated around the world. With familiar voiceovers from David Jason as Danger Mouse and Terry Scott as lovable sidekick Penfold, it remains a firm favourite with everyone who lived through that decade.

However, it is Cosgrove Hall’s magical 1981 TV special, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, that I’m looking at today. I remember stumbling across it and being mesmerised by its brilliant animation techniques. It takes the story of the Pied Piper as laid down in the words of the poem by Robert Browning (whose lines are used verbatim) and brilliantly illustrates the strange tale of Hamelin’s plague of rats, the enigmatic piper who offers to rid the town of them, and the dire consequences when the town fails to pay him the agreed amount later.

Here is a clip of the Pied Piper working his magic on the rats, with the narrator’s wonderfully rhythmic rendering of Browning’s poetry driving the story along. Incidentally, whilst you could be forgiven for thinking the Pied Piper story to have come from the imagination of the Grimm brothers (who did indeed tell the tale later), the first reference to the story was in a stained glass window in Hamelin itself, and contemporary accounts make reference to some actual event that led to the town’s children disappearing in the late 1200s. The stuff of legend!

Pied Piper of Hamelin