The Water Music has a grand Serenade in the form of a suite comprising more than twenty movements. It opens with a pompous Opera-overture; then come some dialogues, with echoes of horns and drums, where the brass and the rest of the orchestra, which are arranged in two sections, respond. Then follow happy and soothing songs, dances, a Bourrée, a Hornpipe, Minuets, popular songs, which alternate and contrast with the joyful and powerful fanfares. The orchestra is very nearly the same as in his usual symphonies, except that considerable importance is given to the brass. One even finds in this work certain pieces written in the chamber-music style, or in the theatrical manner. With the Firework Music the character of open-air music is even more definitely asserted, quite as much by the broad style of the piece as by the orchestration, which is confined entirely to the wind instruments.[433] The composition is divided into two parts: an Overture which was to be played before the grand firework display, and a number of little pieces to be played during the display, and which corresponded to certain allegorical set pieces. The Overture is a sort of stately march in D major, and has some resemblance to the Overture of the _Ritterballet_ (Huntsman's Dance) of Beethoven, and which is, like it, joyful, equestrian, and very sonorous. The shorter movements comprise a Bourrée, a _Largo a la Siciliana_, entitled _Peace_,[434] of a beautiful heroic grace, which lulls itself to sleep; a very sprightly _Allegro_ entitled _The Rejoicing_, and two Minuets for conclusion. It is an interesting work for the organisers of our popular _fêtes_ and open-air spectacles to study.[435] If we have said that after 1740 Handel wrote hardly any other instrumental music than the Firework Music, and the two monumental concertos, _a due cori_ (for two horns) we have the feeling that the last evolution of his thought and instrumental style led him in the direction of music conceived for great masses, wide spaces, and huge audiences. He had always in him a popular vein of thought. I immediately call to mind the many popular inspirations with which his memory was stored, and which vivify the pages of his oratorios. His art, which renewed itself perpetually at this rustic source, had in his time an astonishing popularity. Certain airs from _Ottone_, _Scipione_, _Arianna_, _Berenice_, and such other of his operas, were circulated and vulgarised not only in England,[436] but abroad, and even in France (generally so unyielding to outside influences).[437]