London Calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London. This is London Walks. Streets Ahead. Story time.
History time.
Yesterday Green Park was London’s quiet park.
Today we’re going to make so much noise you won’t believe it’s the same place.
For one extraordinary evening in 1749 Green Park became the loudest, busiest, most spectacular place in Britain.
Imagine an immense purpose-built firework temple.
Imagine a colossal orchestra.
Imagine King George II.
Imagine more than 12,000 people.
Imagine Handel.
Imagine fireworks.
Imagine chaos.
You’ll never look at Green Park quite the same way again.
The occasion was a national celebration.
The War of the Austrian Succession had finally come to an end.
Britain was at peace again.
George II wanted a celebration worthy of a victorious kingdom.
Nothing modest would do.
In Green Park an enormous temporary structure rose from the grass. Designed by the celebrated theatrical architect Servandoni, it stretched across the park like the scenery for the grandest opera ever staged.
It wasn’t really a building.
It was theatre.
A vast classical façade festooned with statues, trophies and elaborate decoration.
A temple built for fireworks.
Even getting ready for the performance proved hazardous.
During the preparations one of the soldiers handling the artillery lost an arm.
It was a foretaste of things to come.
Then the King turned to the greatest composer in Europe.
George Frideric Handel.
There was, however, one small snag.
The King wanted martial display.
Handel wanted music.
George II insisted the orchestra should consist largely of wind instruments and drums. Trumpets. Horns. Oboes. Bassoons. Kettledrums. Martial splendour.
Handel thought strings would make the music richer.
The King disagreed.
The King, naturally enough, won.
At least to begin with.
Handel composed what became one of the most famous pieces of music ever written.
Music for the Royal Fireworks.
But before Green Park came something almost as extraordinary.
The rehearsal.
It took place at Vauxhall Gardens.
London went berserk.
Word spread like wildfire. Everybody wanted to hear Handel’s new music.
The roads south of the river became hopelessly clogged with coaches.
One contemporary account says it took three hours just to get across London Bridge.
Accounts tell of overturned carriages, broken wheels, furious arguments and hours-long delays as thousands struggled to reach Vauxhall.
Like all great London stories, the details have grown in the telling.
That’s what happens to memorable occasions.
Legends accumulate around them.
Nobody ever embroidered the story of a man popping out to buy a bottle of fizzy water.
What nobody disputes is this.
The rehearsal became an event almost as famous as the performance itself.
Then came Green Park.
Oliver Condy, editor of BBC Music Magazine, says that more than 12,000 people packed into the park for the performance.
Pause over that number.
Yesterday we discovered that Green Park gives you a wonderfully clear sense of the scale of Buckingham Palace Gardens.
Now imagine that same great sweep of green almost disappearing beneath humanity.
More than 12,000 Londoners.
Talking.
Laughing.
Waiting.
Fashionably dressed.
Straining for a glimpse.
Wondering whether this astonishing spectacle could possibly live up to expectations.
Then the music began.
Handel did not disappoint.
The fireworks…
Well, that’s another matter.
Almost from the outset things began to go wrong.
Part of Servandoni’s magnificent firework temple caught fire.
Flames climbed through the elaborate wooden decoration.
A stray rocket set a woman’s clothes ablaze.
Two soldiers suffered serious burns.
Another was blinded.
Meanwhile, the English and Italian pyrotechnicians were reportedly arguing with one another while the fireworks were still exploding overhead.
And poor Servandoni…
The magnificent structure he had designed was going up in flames before his very eyes.
One enduring story has him drawing his sword in fury.
Whether every last detail has come down to us exactly as it happened almost doesn’t matter.
That’s the way great London stories work.
Extraordinary occasions attract extraordinary tales.
They acquire them.
They polish them.
They hand them down from one generation to the next.
Green Park’s great fireworks extravaganza has been collecting stories for nearly three centuries.
The music, thankfully, survived the mayhem.
Indeed, it outlived everything else.
The firework temple vanished.
The smoke drifted away.
The crowds dispersed.
The arguments subsided.
But Handel’s music endured.
Today Music for the Royal Fireworks is played in concert halls all over the world.
Green Park quietly became Green Park again.
Which somehow makes the whole story even more astonishing.
Stand beneath those same trees today.
Listen to the robins.
Watch the squirrels.
Take survey.
It’s almost impossible to imagine that this peaceful corner of London once staged one of the greatest public entertainments Georgian Britain had ever seen.
That’s London for you.
The quietest places often have the noisiest histories.
London. What a town. Place never runs out of stories.
I’ll be serving up another one in 24 hours.
See you tomorrow.