Baroque on the Water: Dame Jane Glover Brings Handel to the Chicago River and Starts the Season with “Creation”

“Ever since I’ve been music director of Music of the Baroque,” admits Dame Jane Glover, who became music director back in 2002, “I kept saying, ‘You know, we’re missing a trick here.’ We play Handel all the time, pieces like the ‘Fireworks’ music and the ‘Water Music’ are very much part of our repertoire that we play a lot. And here we are in a city on a lake with a great river that is defined by water. I have been saying that we should try and do this music on the water. For years we’ve thought about it but it would stop with, ‘Oh no, I don’t think it’s possible.’ Well, our current executive director, Declan [McGovern] said, ‘Brilliant! Yes, we’ll make it work.’ And he has! You know, he’s a real impresario who is making it happen.”

“The Chicago Water Music” will take place on the Chicago River and Riverwalk from 7pm-8:30pm on September 18.

“We did a little rehearsal in June. I was working in Cincinnati at the opera, so I came over on a free Saturday and we did a rehearsal. Nobody knew we were coming in terms of the public.

“We got onto our boat at Navy Pier after having rehearsed for about half an hour and then we came up the river to Merchandise Mart and we played as we came. We played again at Merchandise Mart and we played again on the way back. And, of course, we attracted an enormous amount of attention! It was a lovely warm night and people on the Riverwalk were just sort of thrilled, and other boats on the river were sort of thrilled. And, you know, it was just wonderful to watch the reaction.

“Now people know we’re coming because I think it is much advertised and heralded, and there will be a couple of boats following us with people to whom the sound will be relayed, as well as, we hope, loads of people on the Riverwalk on either side. So I think it’s going to be great fun.

“We learned a lot on that rehearsal about what to do with the sound. And we’ve got great people working on the sound so that we can all hear each other, which can be a bit of a problem. But also so the sound can be properly transmitted.

“The thing about Declan is that he came from a broadcasting background. In fact, when I first worked with him, he was running the Ulster Orchestra for the BBC and I worked with him a couple of times doing some concerts there in Belfast. The fact that he worked for the BBC for many years means that he knows about microphones, about sound, about amplification and so on. And he meets those challenges with a great deal of experience.

“The sound will be relayed to the boats that are following us, and it will also be discreetly projected onto the banks on either side, so the people who are on the river banks on the riverwalks, will get the full volume of it. And of course, it will be best when we stop outside the Merchandise Mart and just play the music there because then it’s static. What we discovered when you go under a bridge, for instance, all sorts of things happen to the sound. It was rather wonderful, but you also get a sort of massive echo coming back at you, which is slightly disconcerting and we will deal with that. But I think for the actual central performance at the Merchandise Mart, that will be much more straightforward and then we’ll just play it all again as we tootle back to Navy Pier.

“Although it’s very much the sort of thing that Handel did for George I in 1717 on the River Thames, he didn’t have the benefits of the sort of discrete amplification that we’re giving. The River Thames going from Westminster to Richmond in those days would not have had built-up banks so there would be no acoustic at all. It’s very different in Chicago where you’ve got buildings on either side of the river which gives you an acoustic. We’re not in any way trying to be authentic with it, but we are, I think, celebrating the fact that Handel is one of the greatest pillars of our repertoire. And here we are doing his ‘Water Music’ on the water. And watch this space, because we’re going to do similar things in future years.”

Music of the Baroque’s 2024-25 season will begin a few days before on September 15 and 17 with performances of Haydn’s “The Creation.”

“For me, it’s one of the greatest pieces ever written, actually. It’s just glorious from start to finish. It’s so invested. I mean, for a man at the end of his life to write this incredible, useful piece that’s just bursting with ideas, you feel that Haydn actually believed every word of it. It was incredibly important to him as a man of religion. It’s just a glorious, glorious work with wonderful arias and wonderful choruses, and actually a very wonderful story.”

Often an enormous chorus is used to sing “The Creation,” but Glover feels the work is more transparent and balanced if the size of the orchestra and chorus are about the same.

“Our chorus is not really large, but they’re really good. I think you won’t miss volume or precision or textual engagement, which is what, of course, it’s all about. Or excitement of sound. I think our chorus is simply amazing and I just love to have them with us as often as possible. I’ve done ‘Creation’ with choruses of 150, and of course, it is thrilling. But one does get the flexibility with the smaller choir. And the excitement of that counterpoint just fizzes along. We have to remember that creation was very much a homage to the Handelean oratorio, which Haydn heard in London when he came in the 1790s. And he thought, ‘Oh gosh, I should do one of these.’ And did.

“The orchestra is certainly bigger [than Handel’s]. It’s got a contrabassoon and trombones. And he does use all of that very dramatically and colorfully and wittily. And in many cases, hilariously. He’s got a great sense of humor and that comes out in ‘Creation.’ And yet there is great tranquility and immense seriousness and religious integrity, too. He gives us a whole lot. And of course, great drama.

“That first C major chord that comes with, ‘And then there was light’—it’s just one of the greatest moments in all music. The opening music of chaos is very difficult to do but it’s also an incredible depiction of something that is amorphous and not yet formed. And then he forms it. And it’s an incredibly modern interpretation. I just love it. Can’t wait!

“The recitatives that Haydn wrote are perfectly all right but for those of us who now play Mozart recitatives the whole time, they are not in that league. But then who is? Nobody’s in Mozart’s league with that incredible sort of subtle sophistication of harmonic progression. And a very curiously active bass line, which people don’t necessarily notice. Yet it’s doing very, very subtle things. We don’t get any of that with Haydn.

“But his recitatives are fine, you know? They’re absolutely fine. And in particular, the last one, the last big one with Adam and Eve, which is extraordinary. And there we do get a bit of harmonic surprise and color. And I’ve chosen to play them on a fortepiano rather than a harpsichord, which is entirely authentic also. It just gives us a little bit more variety of color and texture and depth of sound.

“I tend to play my own recitatives in the Mozart operas and I always do in Handel as well. And I’ll be playing them in this, too. So I’m delighted that we’ve got a fortepiano, because it gives me more scope, really. We’ll have another continuo player joining along in the tuttis, but I do rather like to do the recits myself.”

Comparing Haydn and Mozart recitatives inevitably brings up comparisons between the two composers. As the one that set up the template that Mozart then took to a new place, it sometimes seems that Haydn doesn’t get the recognition that he should.

“I agree. I mean, of course they’re incredibly different. It’s a little bit like comparing Bach and Handel, because they were absolute contemporaries, but each such different composers. There is no greater intellectual musician than Johann Sebastian Bach… Whereas Handel, who was capable of incredible emotional investment to all his music, was also fundamentally a showman. They have very different attributes.

“And it’s the same with Mozart and Haydn. Although they were great friends, they were a generation apart. Yes, they both wrote symphonies. And yes, they both wrote string quartets and indeed, for each other, and played them together. It’s interesting that Haydn, having met Mozart, never wrote another opera. I think that is very significant. But I think it is also significant that Mozart knew some of these Handel oratorios because Baron van Swieten brought them to Vienna, and Mozart made his own re-orchestrations of ‘Messiah,’ ‘Acis and Galatea’ and ‘Alexander’s Feast,’ because it was felt that these pieces needed to be modernized because they were by then old-fashioned in their orchestration. And indeed, I love the re-orchestrations that Mozart did.

“Now, Haydn didn’t go along that route. But long after Mozart was dead, he wrote ‘The Creation’ and he wrote ‘The Seasons’ very much in homage to Handel. He sort of took what Handel had been doing and did his own thing. It wasn’t just a rewrite of Handel. And I think this is his greatest contribution ultimately to musical life, ever.

“You know, of course, the 104 symphonies and all those amazing string quartets are wonderful. And indeed, many, many Masses, all of which are great. All that choral music is great. But ‘The Creation,’ which he did in his own way at the end of his life, was on a different plane.”

Music of the Baroque performs Haydn’s “The Creation” on Sunday, September 15, 3pm, at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, Skokie (this show is sold out); and on Tuesday, September 17, 7:30pm, at Harris Theater at Millennium Park, 205 East Randolph. “The Chicago Water Music” is on September 18, Chicago Riverwalk, 7pm-8:30pm. More baroque.org.