Many people have seen in the three movements[427] of the Overture to _Esther_, 1720, a complete programme, which Chrysander gives thus in detail: firstly, the wickedness of Haman; secondly, the complaints of Israel; thirdly, the deliverance. I will content myself by saying that the ensemble of this symphony is thoroughly in the colour and spirit of the tragedy itself--but it is not possible to doubt that, with the Overture of _Deborah_ and with that of _Belshazzar_ that Handel wished to work to a complete programme; for of the four movements of the _Deborah_ Overture, the second is repeated later on as the Chorus of the Israelites, and the fourth as the Chorus of Baal's priests. Thus in his very first pages he places in miniature in the Overture the duality of the nations, whose antagonism forms the subject of the drama.[428] It seems also true that the Overture to _Belshazzar_ aims at painting the orgy of the feast of Sesach, and the apparition of the Divine Hand which wrote the mystic words of fire on the wall. In every case dramatic intentions are very evident; by the three repeats; the interrupted flow of the orchestra is intersected by three short chords, _piano_; and, then after the sudden silence, three bars of solemn and soft music are heard like a religious song.[429] [Illustration: _Allegro_] [Illustration] We now come to our last class of Handel's instrumental music, to which historians have given far too little attention, and in which Handel shows himself a precursor, and at the same time a model. I refer to the open-air music. This took a prominent place in the English life. The environs of London were full of gardens, where, Pepys tells us, "vocal and instrumental concerts vied with the voices of the birds." Concerts were given at Vauxhall; at South Lambeth Palace on the Thames; at Ranelagh, near Chelsea, about two miles from the city; at Marylebone Garden; and Handel was always welcome there. From 1738 the proprietor of Vauxhall, Jonathan Tyer, erected in its gardens a statue of Handel, and this was hardly done when the _Concerti Grossi_ became the favourite pieces at the concerts of Marylebone, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh. Burney tells us that he often heard them played by numerous orchestras. Handel wrote pieces especially intended for these garden concerts. Generally speaking, he attached little importance to them. They were little symphonies or unpretentious dances, like the Hornpipe, composed for the concert at Vauxhall in 1740.[430] An anecdote related by Pohl and also by Chrysander, shows Handel pleasantly engaged on this music, which gave him no trouble at all. But he composed on these lines some works tending towards a much vaster scale: from 1715 or 1717 the famous Water Music, written for the royal procession of barges on the Thames,[431] and the Firework Music made to illustrate the firework display given in Green Park on April 27, 1749, in celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.[432]