Handel's 'Esther'

Synopsis

On the popular NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, there is a segment called “Bluff the Listener” where three outlandish news stories are read to a contestant, who then has to guess which one is true. So, for the voice of Bill Kurtis on your home answering machine, which of these really happened in London on today’s date in 1732:

a) George Frideric Handel got into a sword fight with his Southbank wigmaker, screaming at the poor man, “Donnervetter! In dis vig I luk like ein Pomeranian hund!”

b) Handel’s especially smooth trip across the Thames to buy said wig provided the inspiration for his famous Water Music, or

c) as part of his 47th birthday celebration, choir boys from the Chapel Royal sang and acted in a staged performance of Handel’s sacred oratorio Esther in the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the Strand.

If you guessed “C” you would be correct. Extra points if you knew that this would be the only staged performance of any of Handel sacred oratorios before the twentieth century, and that in Handel’s day there was a ban on presenting staged biblical dramas in public theaters — but not, apparently, in pubs.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Friedrich Handel (1685-1759): Overture from Esther (1732 version); London Handel Orchestra; Laurence Cummings, conductor; SOMM CD-2389

On This Day

Births

• 1648 - (or possibly 1649) Baptismal date of English composer and organist John Blow, in Newark, Nottinghamshire

• 1685 - German-born British composer George Frideric Handel, as “Georg Friedrich Händel,” in Halle (Saxony)

• 1900 - American composer Elinor Remick Warren, in Los Angeles

• 1920 - American composer Hall Overton, in Bangor, Michigan

Deaths

• 1704 - Austrian composer and organist Georg Muffat, 50, in Passau, Germany

• 1934 - English composer Sir Edward Elgar, 76, in Worcester

• 1983 - English composer Henry Howells, 90, in London

Premieres

• 1732 - Handel: oratorio Esther in London at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, by an ensemble including the Children of the Chapel Royal, on the occasion (in England) of Handel’s 47th birthday (Gregorian date: Mar. 5)

• 1835 - Halévy: opera La Juive (The Jewess), at the Paris Opéra

• 1854 - Liszt: symphonic poem, Les Préludes, in Weimar, conducted by the composer

• 1882 - Chadwick: Symphony No. 1, by the Boston Symphony

• 1903 - Rachmaninoff: Piano Preludes Nos. 1, 2, and 5, and Variations on a Theme of Chopin, in Moscow, by the composer (Julian date: Feb. 10)

• 1913 - Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder, in Vienna

• 1916 - Griffes: White Peacock for piano, by Winifred Christie in New York City

• 1923 - Ernest Schelling: A Victory Ball, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1945 - Villa-Lobos: Choros No. 12 for orchestra, by the Boston Symphony with the composer conducting

• 1956 - Leon Kirchner: Piano Concerto No. 1, in New York City, composer at the piano

• 1962 - Stravinsky: A Sermon, A Narrative and A Prayer, in Basle (Switzerland), conducted by Paul Sacher (to whom the work is dedicated)