The Harmonious Blacksmith
Encyclopedia
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430, for harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
. An 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:...
is followed by five doubles (variations in the English division
Division (music)
Division in music refers to a type of ornamentation or variation common in 16th and 17th century music in which each note of a melodic line is "divided" into several shorter, faster-moving notes, often by a rhythmic repetition of a simple musical device such as the trill, turn or cambiata on each...
style): semiquavers in the right hand; semiquavers in the left hand; semiquaver triplets in the right and left hands; and finally demisemiquavers in both hands.
The eight suites of 1720
Handel published his first eight harpsichord suites in 1720 with the following explanation:The name
There have been a number of explanations proffered as to why this movement was called The Harmonious Blacksmith, and by whom. The name was not given by Handel and was not recorded until early in the 19th century, when the movement became popular on its own (while Handel's music remained popular in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
continuously after his death, it was only very selectively known.)
An unproven history
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, MP, PC was the first of fourteen children by Sir James Brydges, 3rd Baronet of Wilton Castle, Sheriff of Herefordshire, 8th Baron Chandos; and Elizabeth Barnard...
at Cannons
Cannons (house)
Cannons was a stately home in Little Stanmore, Middlesex built for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos between 1713 and 1724 at a cost of £200,000 but which in 1747 was razed and its contents dispersed....
between 1717 and 1718, once took shelter from the rain
Rain
Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
in a smithy
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
, and was inspired to write his tune upon hearing the hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
on the anvil
Anvil
An anvil is a basic tool, a block with a hard surface on which another object is struck. The inertia of the anvil allows the energy of the striking tool to be transferred to the work piece. In most cases the anvil is used as a forging tool...
; the regularly repeated pedal note (B in the right hand) in the first variation, can give the impression of a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
hammering. A variation on the story is that he heard the blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
singing the tune which would later become the Air; this explanation fits in nicely with Handel's general technique of borrowing tunes. Neither story is true. The legend began three-quarters of a century after Handel's death with Richard Clark
Richard Clark
Richard Clark may refer to:*Richard Clark , dermatologist*Richard Clark , president of Merck*Richard Clark , pilgrim on the Mayflower*Richard Clark , British television director...
in his Reminiscences of Handel (1836). Henry Wylde
Henry Wylde
Henry Wylde was a conductor, composer, teacher and music critic.Henry Wylde was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, the elder son of Henry Wylde and Martha Lucy née Paxton. His father, then the organist at St Mary's Watford, was himself a music teacher...
and Richard Clark then found an old anvil in a smithy
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
near Whitchurch
Whitchurch, London
Little Stanmore is a locality in the London Borough of Harrow in London, England.-Toponymy:Little Stanmore was named to distinguish it from Great Stanmore, which is now known as Stanmore. The parish was also known as Whitchurch. Whitchurch is a common English place-name meaning 'white church', and...
, Edgware
Edgware
Edgware is an area in London, situated north-northwest of Charing Cross. It forms part of both the London Borough of Barnet and the London Borough of Harrow. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
and fabricated a story to identify William Powell as the fictitious blacksmith, when, in fact, he had been the parish clerk. They raised a subscription for a wooden memorial to him, and in 1868, the people of Whitchurch subscribed again for a grandiloquent gravestone, still standing. It reads: "In memory of William Powell, the Harmonious Blacksmith, who was buried 27. February 1780, aged 78 years. He was Parish Clerk during the time the immortal Handel was organist of this church. Erected by subscription, May 1868."
Handel had written his harpsichord suites of the 1720 publication before he lived at Cannons, when he was at Adlington Hall
Adlington Hall
Adlington Hall is a country house in Cheshire, England. The oldest part of the existing building, the Great Hall, was constructed between 1480 and 1505; the east wing was added in 1581. The Legh family has lived in the hall and in previous buildings on the same site since the early 14th century...
in Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, or even earlier still.
Another possible history for the Harmonious Blacksmith
William Lintern was a blacksmith's apprentice from Bath who later took up music and so was The Harmonious Blacksmith. The piece came to be called after him, probably because he published it under that name for reasons outlined in the following extract:Chappell was a respected musical historian and the story is probably true, but there is no copy of Lintern's edition of the piece in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, and Mr W. C. Smith, who worked at the museum and was a Handelian specialist of high standing, said that the earliest copy of the piece that he had yet (as of 1940) been able to find under the name The Harmonious Blacksmith was that published by the British Harmonic Institution, arranged as a piano-forte duet, the paper of which bears the watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
'1819'.
Origins of the music
As to the origins of the music, a bourréeBourrée
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...
by Richard Jones (1680–1740) features almost the same air in a minor key, though it is not known whether Jones preceded Handel or vice versa. A passage in Handel's opera Almira
Almira
Almira, Königin von Castilien or Der in Krohnen erlangte Glückswechsel, is George Frideric Handel's first opera.-Background:Handel came to the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1703 and played as a violinist in the theatre at the Gänsemarkt, the local market place...
, written in 1704, is very like the Harmonious Blacksmith tune, so it is likely that it was his own. Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
used a similar theme for the subject of a two-part organ fugue
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
.
There also exist several early manuscript versions of this piece, in G major and entitled Chaconne
Chaconne
A chaconne ; is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and...
. The overall shape and form of the variations are the same, but the melody as we know it is not yet fully formed, and there are significant improvements to texture and passagework throughout the later published version. Interesting, perhaps, is a complete lack of the insistent repetition of b' (d" through transposition), which has since been commonly associated with the image of a blacksmith striking his anvil.
Literary mention
Pip, the main character in Great ExpectationsGreat Expectations
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
, by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, is fondly given the nickname of Handel by the character Herbert Pocket, in honor of Pip's upbringing as a blacksmith, and in honor of this music: "We are so harmonious- and you have been a blacksmith".
Saint Dunstan is named as the Harmonious Blacksmith in the 18th century poem "The Devil and Saint Dunstan".
The piece is mentioned in Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
's semi-autobiographical work "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man". Aunt Evelyn is heard to be playing the piece one evening and the author recalls this happy memory during his time at the Front.
Musical influence
The Italian guitarist-composer Mauro GiulianiMauro Giuliani
Mauro Giuseppe Sergio Pantaleo Giuliani was an Italian guitarist, cellist and composer, and is considered by many to be one of the leading guitar virtuosi of the early 19th century.- Biography :...
used the theme as the basis for his Variazioni su un tema di Handel ("The Harmonious Blacksmith"), Op. 107, for solo guitar in 1828.
The German composer Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
used the theme as the basis for a variation movement in his Octet in E major, Op. 32.
The Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
based one of his most famous works on this melody. He first wrote his Variations on Handel's ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’ in 1911. Shortly after, he used the first sixteen bars of his set of variations to create one of his most beloved pieces, Handel in the Strand. He wrote that the music “seemed to reflect both Handel and English musical comedy”, hence the title. The composer made various versions of the work, most notably, a piano solo version (1930).