Fireworks

This concert highlights the ups and downs of life as a composer dependent on the generosity of the noble classes for one's livelihood. While Handel was scoring one of his greatest successes with Music for the Royal Fireworks, written for the King of England to celebrate the end of a war, Haydn got in a not-so-subtle dig at his employment situation with his Farewell Symphony, which asks the musicians to gradually leave the stage before the work is...