Water Music, HWV 348-350

The Water Music was played on the Thames on the evening of 17 July 1717, from a barge of about fifty musicians following the royal barge of George I upstream from Whitehall to Chelsea and back. The Daily Courant reported that the king liked it so well that he ordered it repeated three times. The music survives as three suites, in F, D and G, using horns and trumpets for the open air; no autograph exists, and the order in which the movements were first heard is not known.