Concerto a due cori in F major, HWV 333

Program notes

About the Work

In the 1740s George Frideric Handel’s seasons of English oratorio at the Covent Garden theatre were among the main musical events of the London year, and he liked to give his audiences something extra. Between the parts of an oratorio he would play one of his organ concertos, or put on a new concerto for the orchestra. The three pieces now called ‘Concerti a due cori’ were written for this purpose in the seasons of 1747 and 1748. The one in F major, HWV 333, is thought to have been played at the first performances of the oratorio ‘Alexander Balus’ in March 1748.

The title, which is not Handel’s own, means concertos for two choirs, and the choirs are of wind instruments. Handel wrote for two matching groups, which he labelled first and second chorus, each made up in this concerto of oboes, bassoon and a pair of horns, and set them against each other and against the strings. Why so many wind players were to hand is not certain; one suggestion is that London was full of bandsmen after the regiments raised against the Jacobite rising of 1745 were stood down.

He did not compose much of it afresh. Handel was a great recycler, and these concertos are largely built from choruses of his own oratorios, with the voice parts handed to the instruments. In HWV 333 the best known borrowing comes in the third movement, which is the chorus ‘Lift up your heads’ from ‘Messiah’; other movements, according to one commentator, go back to ‘Esther’, the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne and the ‘Occasional Oratorio’. His audience, who knew far less of his music than we can today, would probably not have recognised much of it. What they heard was a splendid noise, and the piece still makes one.

What to Listen For

There are six movements. The first, marked ‘Pomposo’, is a grand opening in the dotted rhythms of a French overture, and the point of the piece is clear at once: the two groups of horns and oboes answer each other from opposite sides of the orchestra, phrase for phrase, with the strings in the middle. A quick Allegro follows, bright with horns.

The third movement is the one to listen out for if you know ‘Messiah’. In the oratorio the chorus divides to ask and answer the question ‘Who is this King of glory?’; here the two wind choirs take over that exchange, and the effect of music thrown from side to side is, if anything, even plainer without the words.

The Largo that follows turns to the minor: a gently rocking siciliano in which the oboes come forward. The fifth movement is built over a repeating bass, and the concerto ends with a lively movement for everyone, based on yet another chorus. Watch the two groups of players as well as listening to them, since the piece is as much about space as about notes.