All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
– William Shakespeare
After deliberating between doing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Handel’s Water Music, i thought i had more room to be adventurous with Handel’s Water Music as i know nothing about the play and can research into this.
The first performance of the Water Music is recorded in The Daily Courant, the first British daily newspaper. At about 8 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 July 1717, King George I and several aristocrats boarded a royal barge at Whitehall Palace, for an excursion up the Thames toward Chelsea. The rising tide propelled the barge upstream without rowing. Another barge, provided by the City of London, contained about 50 musicians who performed Handel’s music. Many other Londoners also took to the river to hear the concert. According to The Courant, “the whole River in a manner was covered” with boats and barges. On arriving at Chelsea, the king left his barge, then returned to it at about 11 p.m. for the return trip.
The king was so pleased with Water Music that he ordered it to be repeated at least three times, both on the trip upstream to Chelsea and on the return, until he landed again at Whitehall. King George’s companions in the royal barge included Anne Vaughan, the Duchess of Bolton, the Duchess of Newcastle, the Duke of Kingston, Madam Kielmansegg, the Countess of Godolphin, and the Earl of Orkney.
Handel’s orchestra is believed to have performed from about 8 p.m. until well after midnight, with only one break while the king went ashore at Chelsea. It was rumoured that the Water Music was composed to help King George steal some of the London spotlight back from the prince who, at the time, worried that his time to rule would be shortened by his father’s long life, so he threw lavish parties and dinners to compensate for it. The Water Music’s first performance on the Thames was the King’s way of reminding London that he was still there and showing he could carry out gestures even grander than his son’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Music
After doing a bit of reading on Water Music and it’s history, I know i wanted to create a water looking effect so i researched how to do this in illustrator on YouTube. I want to create something modern but still respectful of the era this piece was created. So using more elegant typefaces would be the obvious answer. So after searching through types i found one i think looks almost like a written scroll. The background i’ve decided to use a London skyline, of which i drew out myself, i feel this is appropriate as the first showing of Handel’s Water Music was shown on the thames river in London some subtle foreshadowing adds effect to a poster making it look more appealing and upper market to the public. I used a more basic sans font for the Water text as this worked better with the water effect using the wrinkle tool in illustrator.
The water effect used on this is really impressive giving a 3d effect to the poster. Subtle but it works. I’ve added the date and times to the bottom as the same date used in the original performance for the King, as a sort of homage to the original piece.
GC Graphic Design 