[433] The autograph MS., published in XLVII of the Complete Edition, contains: 2 parts for trumpets with 3 trumpets to a part (i.e. 6 trumpets); 3 Prinzipali (low trumpets); 3 drums; 3 parts for horns with 3 to a part (i.e. 9 Horns); 3 parts for oboes with 12 for the first part, 8 for the second and 4 for the third (i.e. 24 oboes); 2 parts for bassoons with 8 for the first and 4 for the second (i.e. 12 bassoons). Total, 70 wind instruments. There were about 100 players for the performance on April 27, 1749.
Later on, Handel reproduced the work for concert use by adding the string orchestra to it.
[434] Written for 9 horns in three sections, 24 oboes in two sections, and 12 bassoons.
[435] It would not be difficult to add other analogous works by Handel and Beethoven. There exists a fine repertoire of popular classical music for open-air fêtes. But, nevertheless, it is completely disregarded.
[436] The Gavotte theme from the Overture to Ottone was played all over England and on all kinds of instruments, “even on the pan’s-pipes of the perambulating jugglers.” It was found even at the end of the eighteenth century as a French vaudeville air. (see the Anthologie françoise ou Chansons choisies, published by Monnet, in 1765, Vol. I, p. 286). The March from Scipio, as also that from Rinaldo, served during half a century for the Parade of the Life Guards. The minuets and overtures from Arianna and Berenice had a long popularity. One sees in the English novels of the time (especially in Fielding’s Tom Jones) to what an extent Handel’s music had permeated English country life, even from the small country squires to the county magnates, so absolutely cut off as they were from all artistic influences.
[437] Paul Marie Masson has noticed that about the date of 1716, in a volume of Recueil d’airs serieux et à boire. (Bibl. Nat. Vm. 549), an Aria del Signor Inden (sic), “air ajouté au ballet de l’Europe Galante.” The Meslanges de musique latine, françoise et italienne of Ballard (in 1728), contains amongst the Italian airs Arie de Signor Endel (p. 61). All the airs of the Chasse du cerf by Sere de Rieux (1734) are Handel airs adapted to French words. An article by Michel Brenet, La librairie musicale en France de 1653 à 1790, d’après les registres de priviléges (Sammelbände I.M.G., 1907) gives a series of French Editions of Handel from 1736, 1739, 1749, 1751, 1765. In 1736 and in 1743 in Concerts Spirituels some of his airs and his Concerti Grossi were given (Brenet: Les Concerts en France sous l’ancien régime, 1900). A number of his airs were arranged for the flute by Blavet in his three Receuils de pièces, petits airs, brunettes, minuets, etc., accommodés pour les flutes traversières, violins, etc., which appeared between 1740 and 1750. Handel was so well known in Paris that they sold his portrait there in 1739. (See a tradesman’s advertisement in the Mercure de France, June, 1739, Vol. II, page 1384.)