Three Hundred Years of Water Music

George Frideric Handel: Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Naïs – Overture
Grace Williams: Sea Sketches – High Wind, Calm Sea in Summer
George Frideric Handel: Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major
Iain Farrington: A Ship Shape Shin-dig

Royal Northern Sinfonia
Nicholas McGegan (conductor)

Handel's Water Music was first heard in public 300 years ago, performed by about 50 musicians squeezed into a barge on the river Thames. The music was such a success that it was repeated twice more that very night, and the Proms audience at this riverside concert given at the Stage@TheDock in Hull, the 2017 UK City of Culture, was equally appreciative.

To introduce the Prom BBC Radio 3's Clemency Burton-Hill is joined by Oxford University professor Suzanne Aspden whose work focuses on 18th Century music in Britain.

(Photo: The prom at the Stage@TheDock in Hull. Credit: Les Gibbon/BBC)