The Musick For The Royal Fireworks, Performed In The Year 1749. [Hwv 351]. [Full Score] Handel, George Frideric 1685-1759 New Arrivals

20 pp. Third edition. Smith p. 235, no. 9. RISM H1506 and HH1506. Arnold edition no. 24. The Musick for the Royal Fireworks, first performed on 27 April 1749, was composed as part of the celebration in connection with the end of the War of Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Bound with: Handel. Semele A Dramatick Performance In Score The Words altered from Congreve The Musick Composed in the Year 1743. [HWV 58]. [Full score]. [London: Arnold, 1788]. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 3-189, 190-191 (contents), [i] (blank) pp. First complete edition. Smith p. 149, no. 6. RISM H1507 and HH1507. Arnold edition nos. 24-28. Semele, to a libretto by William Congreve (1670-1729), was first performed in London at Covent Garden on 10 February 1744. Folio. Half dark brown leather with marbled boards. With "Fire Music. Semele. (A Dramatic Performance)" in contemporary manuscript to front pastedown. Engraved throughout. Binding worn, rubbed, and bumped; upper board detached; spine lacking. Fireworks title slightly soiled; occasional minor foxing, soiling, and browning; stain to upper right corner of p. 149 of Semele, not affecting music. "[Handel] had previously presented works with classical subjects alongside oratorio proper, and the quality of Acis and Galatea and Alexander's Feast confirms that the genre was important to him. Semele was a superb continuation of that line." Anthony Hicks in Grove Music Online The first complete full scores of both works.