Zadok the Priest - Handel Electrifies the Coronation!
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"Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel down at his tomb." - Ludwig van Beethoven in 1824
Handel’s Zadok the Priest was composed for the coronation of George II in Westminster Abbey in 1727 and has been performed in every British coronation since that date. The first performance was something of a disaster: having forgotten to sing another piece, the choir sang the anthem at the wrong point in the service, and another performance during the service was described as ending “in confusion”.
The reason for Zadok the Priest’s enduring popularity probably has something to do with its marvelous blend of musical elements: the unexpected hush of the opening, the stately tread of the music, its style derived from keyboard improvisation, with its softly expressive string arpeggios, taking the listener on a journey of inexorable but slightly unexpected harmonic shifts, building in intensity until the choir and trumpets finally burst out in regal splendor. The music that follows (rather like monarchy itself) is glittering and festive but less interesting than the build-up to its arrival.
The tiny recorded excerpts of Zadok the Priest used in this video come from a spectacular live performance that took place in 2009 (in the Market church in Halle, where Handel was baptized in 1685). The English Concert and the Händelfestspielorchester Halle were conducted by Howard Arman. You can hear the complete performance on UA-cam here: • Handel: Zadok the Prie...
You may also be interested to see Handel's music enhancing the ritual theatre of the coronation service in this footage of King Charles III's coronation in Westminster Abbey on 6th May, 2023:
• Zadok the Priest - Kin...
A more sedate version of the anthem, with a larger choir and orchestra, more in line with the performance practice of the early 1950s, can be heard in this famous footage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (also in Westminster Abbey) in 1953: • Zadok The Priest - Que...
Edited by Ian Coulter ( www.iancoultermusic.com )
Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King
I’m British and I can confirm His Majesty only attended the ceremony so he could hear Zadok The Priest.
its not quite the only reason I watched the entire 2 hour ceremony but not far off.
Hysterical!
What a twatty comment
Agreed, I know I could hardly wait for it myself 😊
It's a great piece! It's electric every time I hear it.
When it first started to sound at the Coronation, I will admit that chills ran up my spine.
The Coronation Anthem Zadok The Priest seems to encapsulate the feel and pride of a state occasion, which, through a change of monarch will mean new money, new stamps, a new 'King'; or 'Queen' on post boxes and so many aspects of life in Britain and in her loyal protectorates around the world. This is a huge occasion for us all to enjoy, and the regal, stately Zadok The Priest speaks of it back down through the ages. I absolutely, unreservedly LOVE it. This is the vital anointing theme, guaranteed to make your hair follicles stiffen. This gentleman's examination of it helps to illustrate the point, and I think I'm on about my tenth viewing of this video.
I used to crank “Zadok the Priest” in the car when my son was a young boy. He couldn’t get enough of the explosive entry of the choir. Fun times with baroque.
What a fortunate little boy! ❤❤❤
If it ain't baroque don't fix it :)
Lovely memory!
I have a CD of it by John Eliot Gardiner and I took it with me to a music group that I belong to. The organiser put it on, then once it had started turned the volume up to the 'normal' level that we use to listen to everything with. The thing about this particular recoding is that the first part is VERY quiet, but the volume was turned up high, so everyone could hear it well.
Then the second part exploded with the full choir etc. ... I was waiting for this ...
"Oh, my God!" He rushed to turn it back down, while I sat there laughing.
I’m not a royalist but I watched this particular part of the coronation to hear Zadoc the Priest in the intended context. It is supremely powerful and electrifying, as if at the very moment the choir comes in that God too has entered the room. Given the implied divinity of the ceremony I can only imagine that’s what Handel was shooting for.
You don't need to be a royalist to enjoy beautiful and powerful music.
you dont need to be a royalist to enjoy and celebrate culture
Indeed. Except that on the BBC Huw Edwards talked over the entire Prelude.
In the score, the cue for the choir to sing "Zaa-dok the Priest ..." is simply marked "loud".
When I was in highschool, we performed Zadok The Priest. Our 212 voice choir produced the necessary wall of sound. It is certainly not an easy piece to perform well, but the goosebumps when you just know in your bones that you nailed it is perhaps bettered only by singing Beethoven's Hallelujah Chorus. We sang that, too. It was quite ambitious considering that there were no auditions to be able to enter the music department. If you wanted to join, in you went. Because if that, I have been on stage in both the Massey Music Hall and Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
is that ƒ or ƒƒ ? 📣
@@miditrax Yup. Double ff. Not loud FFS!
I would love to have met him. GF Handel was renowned for his ….forthright manner?
His motto could gave been “No messin’ about”.
Well things were less standardised and handel spoke english so it makes sense
I'm just so thankful that I got to hear this piece in its intended context. It's a truly magnificent piece of music and was today sung brilliantly by the very choir it was written for. Such privilege.
It shall remain a cherished memory along with twice visiting Westminster Abbey and seeing the life size bust of Handel at the Huntingdon Library Museum in California.
that's exactly how i feel. it gave me goosebumps!
Ditto. Very moving.
Wow!
Exactly what I felt. I have heard this so many times in recordings and performance and I suddenly realised this is what is was actually written for
Hello Music Professor. "That chord change" changed my life! Here's how.
I'm 55. Back in 1979 I was 11 and went, by choice, to St Alban's School in the UK. For various reasons, I didn't much like the school to start with, not least because my maths teacher said he thought it was a good idea to count on one's fingers.
We used to sing in St Alban's Cathedral twice a week, under Andrew Parnell. We learned and sung "Zadok the Priest" soon after I started.
When I heard THAT chord - 03:13 in your video - and the subsequent ones you talk about - my "music eyes" opened wide. I was genuinely excited. "Wow! Maybe this school will be cool after all!" I thought, happily.
That was during rehearsal on the piano. When I heard it on the organ in the cathedral, I was even more excited. I can remember both moments clearly, over 40 years later.
I didn't play any instrument then. However, I went on to learn the organ, age 14.
Understanding how that Zadok opening working was a top priority for me!! I made a 5 octave electronic keyboard and sat in my bedroom working out how it works.
From age 16, I played the organ in the cathedral twice a week. Happy days indeed! I never got to perform Zadok there, but I did elsewhere.
I still play the organ, and now three other instruments too.
I'm told I play the organ well - maybe see Bach BWV 542 on my channel.
**And a huge drive to learn to play came from hearing the Zadok intro that you talk about in this video.**
So thank you. I enjoyed your video very much. 😃
And I ended up enjoying my school very much too! 😄
BTW, I think your demos on a piano rather than harpsichord sound fine. I think you've mic'd it very well.
Thanks again. 🙂
Thank you for your comments and your fascinating story. Great music always has an impact!
Very similar experience in the Moline Boy's Choir, including obsessing over learning the introduction. Including being a piano major down the line. I imagine that Handel was the first piano teacher of a large number of boy sopranos.
Thanks for sharing that. I love how clear those moments still are for you.
I just made this recording of the first section. I made it for a UA-cam 1 minute Short, so I've cut three measures from the intro to make that work. I forgot to do a full version without the cut. (I had lots of trouble with video cameras stopping and video files getting corrupted - far harder than playing the music! 😄).
As an experiment I double pedalled the bass line with the bottom note sustained, so it's incredibly heavy! 🤭
ua-cam.com/video/KGWFwOVZee0/v-deo.html
i never wqs any good at theory but when i hear that chord change i feel it in stomach and think mayb Jesus is coming back right then the anticipation is so insanely glorious
I have never been so moved by a piece of music as I was by Zadok the Priest at the Coronation. It was breathtaking. The moment of the anointing is truly special.
May the kingdom continue, and the protesting mob descend into the void of history 😊
It can't last much longer.
"Sceptre and crown will tumble down and in the dust be equal made With the common scythe and spade."
The hypocrisy of the church, founded on divorce, that drove a king from the throne rather than crown a divorced woman as queen only 87 years ago, now crowning one (albeit very casually and hastily), is just one of the gaping cracks in today's monarchy.
Zadok the Priest is wonderful music, but the idea that magical oil from Jerusalem dabbed on Charles links him with a 2500 year back king or makes him special in any way should be laughed to scorn, not treated with reverence.
@@Hugh7777 And yet, it will endure. 😊
@@Hugh7777 they also crowned a divorced king, who committed adultery, was very cruel to his first wife and has fingers in many nefarious pies and the rest. Hope my country divorces itself form the monarchy of England very, very soon.
However the music is fantastic.
One of my favourite uses of "Zadok the Priest" is the scene in "The Madness of King George" when they manhandle the King to strap him into a wooden chair. The irony of using a coronation anthem to mark the restraining of a man with mental illness is delicious!
Yes. It's a brilliantly 'dissonant' use of the music, and all the more poignant because George III's favourite composer was Handel.
Thank you for letting us know of this scene! I just watched it, and oh dear, it's delightful (well acted, too).
*King George* : I am the King of England!
*Dr Willis* : No sir! You are the patient!
It is because those 3 Georges where incredible bastards Read history of imperial and colonial England
Agree! and watching that scene on tv a few years ago, when the intro to Zadok began playing in the background (as they were beginning to wrestle with the king), I knew what was coming and the twisted irony of it!
Been excited all week for the coronation precisely because of how much I love THIS PIECE!!
The moment did not disappoint!
It was absolutely magnificent, the highlight of the coronation, imagine being there in the Abbey, I love Handel’s music, an incredible genius
And once again, Handel anoints the new monarch of England. So in reality, Handel reigns supreme.
Almost all the music was by court and Anglican church composers over the centuries with Rutter doing rutterish arrangements,
@@fsinjin60 I don't know, John Rutter is a good musician............ for a Cambridge chemistry professor! (Actually I like his music especially his Christmas carols which I've been singing for years)
@@samrodian919 I did not say bad, just very Rutter-like. It works great in his carols and other religious works; it was terrible for Beatles songs
No.. Jesus reigns Supreme.. Charles denounced Christ.. 1 world religion. His day of judgment is coming.
Precisely. No Handel, no monarchy, in my view.
I adored it to hear Zadok The Priest for the only moment is was actually made for!
Handel's contributions to the British monarchy are incalculable. This is a very astute discussion of the elements that elevate the moment of anointment to a truly sublime phenomenon.
This was the best part of the coronation. It was so glorious.
That unexpected minor chord always gives me goosebumps.
Handel was a genius! The building up of the musical tension that explodes with the choir's declamation of 'Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet' never, ever fails to thrill. I always ensure that my blood pressure medication is within easy reach.... I very much enjoyed your analysis, Professor. Thank you!! Regards, Peter A :) :) :)
Thank you so much. Yes, keep the medication close at hand!
@@themusicprofessor Hahaha!! All good wishes. Peter A :) :) :)
It never fails to make me cry.
I think this piece probably has the best two minutes of the beginning of a piece and the Rachmaninov 3rd piano concerto has the best last two minutes!
@@emb74 Dvorak's violin concerto has a fabulous ending - as does Franck's symphony in D minor!!!! I love a good ending!!:) :) :)
For me, the highlight of the coronation. Splendid!
I was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral when I was a kid, and this was *always* our absolute favourite piece to sing :) It's sooo much fun!
He was always my favorite to sing, too! I mean, Bach and Mozart are wonderful, of course, but Handel? He is a delight!
Thanks for this. I’ll never forget playing it with a large orchestra and choir 50 years ago as a young violinist. Majestic..as it was in the Abbey. I watched the service with my 87 year old dad and when they started Zadok he piped out…now there’s real music. Bit of a put down on all the new pieces….
Zadok the priest and the anointing of the King were my “looking forward to moments” of the coronation. Neither let me down after 70 years of waiting for the special day!
Safe to say Handel created the beat drop
He also invented the middle eight . Most of his arias have an A- A - B - A melody structure as many popular songs have today.
Thank you for this. I played this piece (on the violin with 2 other violins) to my neighbours at our Jubilee Street Party. I can’t tell you what it really felt like, so uplifting and emotional even in our smaller initiate setting.
I had the enormous privilege of singing this piece in performance for the first time in the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday evening. That first choir note was one of the most electrifying moments of my 60 years! It brings me out in goosebumps just thinking about it. (Unfortunately I sing alto, and spent most of the rest of the piece repeating the note 'A'. Ah well.)
I sang it as a younish girl in the Royal Choral Society which was a great experience....twas the start of my singing and teaching career. The RCS on Good Friday is the only society which stages Handel's Messiah in its entirety..about six hours..just love the grandness of Handel.....
Ah, the eternal problem of being an alto 😂
I think people forget the wonderful Parry anthem ('I was glad') in the coronation service and the amazing daylight on the 3rd sung note ('glad') - so simple and yet so stunning!
I love this piece. I have just a little musical training (a few years of piano lessons and many years playing) and I have always “felt” what you just put into words and explained for me!!
It was wonderfully done at the coronation yesterday. When the choir came in I think it must have shaken the rafters! One person who was there commented that even though he knew what was coming he still jumped.
The intro, is one of the great build ups in Classical Music.
But, what does my head in is the brutality of the V7 chord in 4th inversion on the word "Prop-het."
I never tire of it.
Spine tingling stuff!
Apologies. 3rd inversión! 😉
No doubt one of if not the greatest intro in music in my humble opinion. The sense of anticipation never fails to get my adrenaline into overdrive.
In 1977 Sir Huw Weldon co-wrote and presented a 10-part series on BBC TV called Royal Heritage. I'm certain that it used Zadok the Priest as it's opening title music.
I was 12 years old with no musical training. And this amazing music, sempre crescendo, was a total revelation to me. So much so that I sat one evening close up to the television with a microphone in one hand and a portable tape cassette recorder in the other, determined to record it in case I never heard it again.
That's amazing, and I'll tell you a strange coincidence: I first heard Zadok the Priest on the same programme, and had the same reaction - although I wasn't enterprising enough to try to record it.
I also watched the Royal Heritage programs and can confirm that Zadok the Priest was used as the title music.
I was 12 in 1977, Silver Jubilee year, too and Zadok the Priest is what I remember from this series more than anything else. It was also the first time I heard this magnificent music. As a music student, several years later, our choir sang The King Shall Rejoice, which is the second of the four Coronation anthems. It is wonderful too.
Gosh I remember that series and Huw Weldon..his like will never be seen or heard again....
Totally agree. It's one of the great strokes of musical and spiritual genius ever. :-)
I sang it int he choir of St Andrews Sydney when a boy, upon the Queen's visit to Australia. It reduces me to tears whenever I hear it. That introduction is-something totally ethereal. No-one can ever teach a composer how to conjure music lie this-it's a mystery.:-)
Thank you for that very interesting analysis of Zadok the Priest. A truly majestic work by Handel.
The first time I saw and played this piece's sheet music I thought: "how the hell did he think about switching to E minor?"...I am glad to see I was not the only one reacting that way.
It's a bit of a Radiohead thing too....
Thank you for this video! I am new to your channel and only found you because I was so moved by Zadok the priest when I heard it at King Charles coronation on Saturday. What I also found made this piece work so well at this stage of the coronation was the theatrical element that took place at this point in the ceremony. King Charles had all his Kingly robes taken off, the screens were taken out in preparation for his anointment, beautifully choreographed by the soldiers, and at the moment when the choir came in, Charles was down to his trousers and loose shirt, looking no more like a king, just a common man going before God. It was such an amazing moment that I started to cry. I would love to know who directed and choreographed the day with all that music and ceremony. It was a masterpiece from start to finish.
Thanks for this explanation. This unexpected chord progression is the mark of creative genius. The kind of stuff that divides the good from the great.
Thanks for breaking it down. It’s a magnificent piece
This piece is so awe inspiring. Handel was an uber genius!
It's such an emotional journey!
Most of us plebs have no idea why it is we find this masterpiece so incredibly moving. We just do,great art,for all of your wonderful and insightful analysis,moves the fucking shit out of us and it’s beauty appeals to to our souls. I enjoyed your vid,great stuff.
Thank you!
But we're the ones that really matter. Without an audience these pieces would not be legendary and it's the power to move so may for so long that makes this piece so great.
Please clean up your language. This isa public site. Thank you.
I felt every word of that and agree entirely
As someone who'se only musical skill is playing cassettes or a CD, you've explained beautifully why this piece is so strangely inspiring! I was lucky enough to watch Queen Elizabeth's coronation on a small black and white TV in '53 and, even then, I was attracted to it and have loved hearing it ever since. You've now explained why. Well done! Subscribed.
The very first choral work I performed. Portsmouth Cathedral c1965. My year, and perhaps others were dragooned to perform it. Most were sniggering and resentful, but I was entranced. I have loved choral music ever since.
Thank you.
I think it's worth mentioning how bassline is everything in baroque music. Partimento schemata
It would have helped if the Music Professor had shown it in his music examples.
Fascinating thank you, I wondered how the piece enraptured me even though I've heard it before. It was performed superbly at the Coronation of Charles III.
Thanks Matthew for your enlightening information on this fabulous piece of music.
Thank you Trudi!
One of my favourite pieces by Handel, thx very much!🙏🏻
Zadok the Priest is really thrilling, people just anticipate the first 3 words being sung 😃
I love how 'Zadoc' gets more exciting every time you hear it. the opening bars build up with a growing sense of anticipation to the explosion from the choir and orchestra x
For the fascinating background story to this anthem's text, read 1 Kings, chapter one in the Old Testament. Unlike Saturday's meticulously planned ceremony, Solomon's coronation was an emergency, impromptu affair, made urgent by the rebellion of David's other son, Adonijah, who tried to usurp the throne. This one, exciting chapter contains the whole story, including the parts played by Zadok, Nathan, Bathsheba and others. Another difference: Charles did not have the honor of riding his father's personal mule to the service.
Myths are NOT part of this at all.
@DeeJay
What do you mean by "myth"? This peace (as the coronazione itself) Is deeply rooted in Religion!
I suspect that the late Prince Philip's mule wasn't available for the occasion!
@@Dee-JayW assuming that you mean that Zadok, Solomon etc are myths, then your comment is illogical. Are you saying that Handle's Zadok the Priest has nothing to do with the Biblical Zadok the priest?
@@peterwilkins7013 Handel's Zadok is based on a book of myths. Gorgeous music, Handel and Bach are my favourites!
I learned this wonderful piece of music as a choir boy at Manchester Grammar School in the early 70s and 50 years later I remember every word and note it imprinted on my brain as a work of genius - quality lasts through the ages ...
It is an extraordinary piece, especially as you explained it. Handel is a true musical genius. In many ways, ahead of his time..
An unexpected moments within expected frames are hallmarks of greatest composers.
Well put!
These chord modulations from the beginning section that Haendel came up with are so iconic! This is why baroque music is so "angular" and not "round" like Cassical or Romantic ones: when you are expecting for one thing then occurs exactly the awkward (and brilliant!) opposite thing.
Always breathtaking! Interesting to know it was messed up at the very beginning. Hasn't it come through magnificently since then? Wonderfully stirring! Thank you for this lovely video.
You Sir are a genius. A privilege to have watched this video.
Thank you!
I have loved this piece of music since I was a little girl and I am so glad I have finally heard it in its proper context and setting.
Beautifully described
I love this piece - one of my favourite short works, in fact, and I agree that the opening is the most interesting section. Many thanks for explaining how it 'works', so-to-speak!
Thank you for this fascinating. The other anthems he wrote are beautiful too. I love “My Heart is Indicting”. I wish they had played all of them
Not only is this piece a revelation to listen to, it also happens to be really, really fun to sing.
I'm a football fan. Ive always loved the champions league and especially its anthem. I heard it was based on zadok a few years ago and it was a nice introduction into classical music. I found this video fascinating! The majesty and and excitement of the champions league anthem really inspired me as a kid, and it's so cool to know zadok's history. It really was a majestic and regal piece of music. Thanks :)
Thank you do much for this. Yes the opening is mystical
Thanks a lot! Hugs from Brasil!
I remember back in the late 1980s, when I was in my late teens, the World Council of churches decided to hold their decennial meeting in Scotland, Their opening service was at Holyrood cathedral in Stirling where James VI/I had been crowned and other such historical events had happened. They gathered together all the local choirs and orchestras in the church with the Organ (with its capped 32' stop!!) and we performed Zadok the Priest.
Even though I say so myself, it was astounding. I don't think anyone will ever hear it quite like that again particularly in that situation. We started off really quietly and gently with that relentless rhythm in the cellos and built up and up until the entry of the choir when we made this phenomenal sound which continued to the end of the piece. The final echo danced around the cathedral for what seemed like forever.
However, the priest had this tiny, little, monotone voice (imagine John Major with a Scottish accent) and after all the noise his tiny voice said "we welcome you to the church of the Holyrood" in what sounded almost like a mouse's voice. It felt like such a let-down after such magnificent music.
Thank you for the musical explanation of this famous opening. I have always found it to be incredibly magnetic, but never understood what made it so.
awesome music! 👑
I'm endlessly captivated by the piece.... mostly before the people rejoice, of course. A brilliant piece of writing.
Science teacher here, and a lover of music (but not trained). Your explanation of this piece does Not detract from it. It makes my appreciation of it even stronger! Thanks ever so much for this video. ❤🎉
I like your analysis very much! As a professional pianist I love music in itself, but it gets extra beauty for me when I also understand why a certain bit of music thrills or awes me.
Lovely analysis! I've known this choral piece since I was like eight years old - it was on a baroque music sampler album from Archiv we had at home since before I was born (still in the family collection) together with recordings of Bach, Vivaldi, Rameau and others - and I knew it was going to show up at the coronation yesterday of course, but never seen it analyzed like this. The majestic feel of the slowly marching, mounting strings and choir is very clear when you listen to it, but apart from his method of juxtaposing slow and fast sections I hadn't thought much about how Handel achieves this glorious effect.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge
If you want to get into deferred cadences at the Coronation, look at the end of Parry's 'I was glad', with its mind-bending setting of the somewhat unremarkable text "peace be within thy walls and plenteousness within thy palaces." I'm not sure I've ever encountered more tension in what really boils down to a V-I cadence.
It really is an incredible piece, I never tire of listening to it.
A magnificent piece. HANDEL was one of the greatest.
A long time favorite piece. And a great little talk about it. ❤
Wonderful commentary!
This is one of those rare pieces of music that really does give you butterflies, and has become so symbolic of the coronation that the ceremony is almost impossible to imagine without it. I learned the tenor line just so i could sing along with that opening!
I can't help but feel it's a shame it was written about the anointment, as let's be honest it would have made bloody good tv if the Archbishop of Canterbury slowly approached Charles through those opening bars, then *WHOMP* he slams the crown on his head on the 'Z' of Zadok!
Beguiling! Utterly, and such splendid Animation you accompany it with - bravo!
When I visited London, for the first time, Westminster Abbey was on my "must visit" list. The grave of George Frederick Handel was the only memorial, of all the important people buried at the Abbey, that I intentionally sought out. Although I walked over the graves of many individuals, without a concern that I might be showing disrespect, I intentionally approached the grave of Handel with the utmost of care. I dared not set foot upon it. This video suggests the reasons why; I was in the presence of the final resting place of a musical genius who enriched the lives of countless people for centuries after his life ended.
I well remember when I was an Abbey chorister, at the rehearsal for the Maunday Money service, the then Organist & Master of Choristers, Douglas Guest, having us repeat the first choral bar of Zadok over and over, with him saying, "Louder, louder", each time until he was satisfied we had given him fff at least!
Absolutely brilliantly dissected, Mr King!
This unlocked a delightful memory of my first proper interaction with musicology, which was my piano teacher explaining exactly what you're explaining here about Bach's C Major Prelude when I was... about 15. So very much thank you for that.
Standing on the north side of Brook Street and looking at the buildings opposite one observes two adjoining houses both with blue plaques. On the right at number 25 a plaque inscribed to Handel and on the left a plaque inscribed to Hendrix. We know that Hendrix listened to Handel and I like to imagine Handel being intrigued by his neighbour's music. I find that fairly electrifying.
Yes - I've long been fascinated by the Handel-Hendrix conjunction. Subject for a video perhaps..!
Little slap at the monarchy at the end to keep the professor cred. Make sure your boss hears that,might be a raise in it for you.
Chance would be a fine thing.
Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon THE CHAAAAMPIOOONS!!!
"We are the Champions, my friend" - Queen 👑
I subsumed Handel's Zadok harmonies into my partimenti toolbox quite early on in my journey. The 3rd bar shift is so sublime, mystical somehow and yet so simple. Handel has a lot more to him than first meets the ear. Adore his organ concerti too. I particularly enjoyed the Boyce that was played - I must investigate him more too...
And Handel also electrifies the football, or soccer!
That is indeed correct! Perhaps some of my remarks about royalty at the end of the video apply to football too (dives for cover...)
THE CHAMPIONS!
Forza Milan! 🔴⚫🎉
Zadok the priest is just majestic!
Yes! That progression is never not astonishing. It's tonic is DM, which aims for a typical V of V, but is prepared by a somewhat irregular triadic harmony--II minor 7--that's ordinarily a rascally IV intended to slip obediently to V7, but instead tricks us through an intrigue by lowering the sixth so we have what would ordinarily be a V of V, no big deal, but instead another II minor 7--of IV! This then routes to V, and becomes the new temporary tonic, repeating the intro on A, with the same wonderful detour as before. It's simple but exotic, one of the least complicated yet most remarkable moments in all of music--using the submediant twice, instead of a IV and a V, as the functional V of IV, then V of V, respectively.
Brilliant as always!
One man missed this the second time it was played at the Coronation for George 3rd because he was stuck in a carriage jam. Benjamin Franklin.
Brilliant analysis. Thank you.
Love the piece, and your information!
Thank you for explaining this. I've always loved the start of Zadok the Priest without the musical understanding to know why. That 'deferring the moment of arrival' as you describe it, builds the tension until that glorious moment when the choir comes in. Musical tension can be a wonderful thing. And like you, I find the 'and all the people rejoiced' very rum-ti-tum. It's such an anti-climax after the glory of what has just happened. But maybe other people love it!
Interestingly, watching the coronation of Saturday was quite revelatory (ua-cam.com/video/SCZAEI4zouE/v-deo.html) because of the way the anthem fits so well to the choreography of the ritual it accompanies. 'And all the people' is very effective in this context, and Handel's setting of 'God Save the King' is rhythmically very powerful. I sometimes wonder if Handel's approach to rhythm in the 18th century was almost as overwhelming as Stravinsky's was in the 20th century.
It's a release of tension before the dramatic conclusion and pause before all the God save the Kings. Handel wrote a bunch of operas before this.
Beethoven paid Handel the supreme compliment saying he could always learn something from his music.
And the elderly Haydn's most precious possession was a score of Messiah brought to him from London by another musician.
Revealing: illuminating: stimulating. Thank you for this
Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel and Domenico Scarlatti were all born in the same year: 1685. Three of my favorite composers, each with a distinct style.
Yes, Bach and Handel both geniuses, Bach for his mathematical prowess, and Handel for his beautifully lyrical themes. Hard to pick a favourite, like asking if you prefer your leg over your arm.
This guy is great!
Great lesson!
The harmonic journey Handel makes in the instrumental opening of Zadok reminds me of a similar harmonic journey he takes us on midway through "His yoke is easy" in Messiah, before returning to the original key. There's no obvious reason for it, but it elevates the music to a different spiritual plane. I remember someone saying during a Handel 250th anniversary BBC broadcast back in 2009: "Handel isn't ONE of my favourite composers, Handel IS my favourite composer". Over the years I've come to the same view.
Agree with you that after the chorus comes in with Zadok etc, it lapses into ho-hum (for Handel), but after the wonderful introduction, the entry of the full chorus with Zadok is spine-tingling. Handel knew how to move and rouse people in a theatrical yet sublime, divine, extrovert way. (That's not quite it, but close enough.)
Handel of course ,who became a British institution, is buried in Westminster Abbey in poet's corner and I wonder how his ghost reacted when they were playing his song! I liked that piece by William Boyce as well that had a very Handelian ring to it -there was also a short symphony by Boyce at the Prince Harry/Meghan Markle wedding in Windsor.I presume Boyce was greatly influenced by Handel.
Boyce was indeed a talented British composer of the next generation. Handel was a major celebrity in London in the 1720s so Boyce would have grown up aware of his illustrious colleague, and I believe they were friends later on. Handel's influence on his music is unmistakeable, but then Handel's influence extended well beyond Boyce: a century later, Beethoven's 'Consecration of the House' overture of 1824 was written as a sort of homage to Handel.
@@themusicprofessor Beethoven on his deathbed called Handel, "the ablest of composers."
@@themusicprofessor Also, Mozart re-orchestrated 'Messiah' and quoted 'And with his stripes' in the Kyrie fugue in his 'Requiem'.
William Boyce (as Master of the King’s Music) reputedly refused to compose a new setting of Zadok the Priest for the coronation of George III, declaring that Handel’s setting was unsurpassable.
@@jaakkomantyjarvi7515 I think Mozart also reorchestrated Handel's short English language opera "Acis and Galathea" which is a work by Handel I absolutely love.
Love the graphics! And…. The Education. Thankyou😀
Always liked listening to and watching, people who really know their subject.
I love these videos.