Sunday Newscape Magazine

Portsmouth, England - King George II commissioned George Friedrich Handel to write a solemn but celebratory piece of choral music for the funeral of Queen Caroline, in 1737. It was well received but when Handel asked permission to perform a new arrangement of it in Italian at a concert to boost his income the king refused and demanded the Italian version be buried forever.

Now, for the first time, the Italian version will be heard when the University of Portsmouth choir sing it live on May 9.

The 70-strong choir is open to all and is made up of students and staff of the university and local residents. They will sing the 32-minute anthem in Italian at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth with period instrument group, The Consort of Twelve.

University of Portsmouth music lecturer George Burrows, who leads the choir, said: “This is a tremendously exciting opportunity to perform a piece of music with real emotional power. We are a university choir and for all of us the opportunity to learn about such works is as important as performing them.

“Events of this calibre also encourage enthusiastic participation and for the international students engaging with such first-rate British music is an important part of their experience.”

The choir has been rehearsing the music for three months in preparation for the concert ‘Birthdays and Funerals: Choral Music by Handel and Purcell’.

Mr Burrows said: “The Italian anthem has a depth of expression appropriate to its subject but, while it is undoubtedly a moving work, it contains several really uplifting moments of the sort that have made Handel famous.

“Handel’s music has extraordinary energy and emotion – he seems to be able to tap into something deep and universal in people. I think it’s this grasp of human emotion combined with the power of his music to express this that makes his music so loved and so relevant.”

Though Handel translated the English anthem into Italian and shortened the original by eight minutes he stopped working on it when George II demanded it be buried, so he never finished re-orchestrating the music to match the different rhythm and syntax of the Italian language.

The music was then forgotten for 265 years and Mr Burrows found out about the music from his father, Professor Donald Burrows, a leading expert on Handel, and set about resurrecting the score for performance.