The Alchemist, HWV 43, is incidental music

Incidental music

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

 used for the revival of Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

's play The Alchemist

The Alchemist (play)

The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...

at the Queen's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on 14 January 1710. The work is an arrangement, by an anonymous composer, of music written by Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

.

All but one of the movements were taken from the extended overture to Handel's first Italian opera Rodrigo

Rodrigo (opera)

Rodrigo is an opera in three acts composed by George Frideric Handel. Its original title was Vincer se stesso è la maggior vittoria . The opera is based on the historical figure of Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king of Hispania...

. The overture introduced the play and the other movements were used to fill the gaps between acts.

The incidental music was published in full a few months after the first performance; however, it is unlikely that Handel received any payment for either the performance or publication of the music. It is likely that the work was the first of Handel's music to be performed in England.

A typical performance takes almost 15 minutes.

Movements

The work has the following movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

:

Movement	Type
1	Overture Overture Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
2	Prelude Prelude (music) A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...  (by an anonymous composer)
3	Minuet Minuet A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
4	Sarabande Sarabande In music, the sarabande is a dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation...
5	Bourree Bourrée The bourrée is a dance of French origin common in Auvergne and Biscay in Spain in the 17th century. It is danced in quick double time, somewhat resembling the gavotte. The main difference between the two is the anacrusis, or upbeat; a bourrée starts on the last beat of a bar, creating a...
6	Air Air (music) Air , a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions.-English lute ayres:...
7	Minuet
8	Gavotte Gavotte The gavotte originated as a French folk dance, taking its name from the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné, where the dance originated. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo...
9	Gigue Gigue The gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...