From the Editor in Chief: Water Music

How Happy Are Kings? On Wednesday evening, 17 July 1717, King George I took his nobles out for an evening dinner cruise on open barges, proceeding up the Thames to supper at Chelsea. One barge held fifty musicians playing George Frideric Handel’s Water Music, composed especially for the occasion. The royal bash must have been a blast; the king liked the music so well he had it played three times, and the party didn’t make it back to St. James until after four in the morning. Sometimes it’s good to be king. You can get Handel to compose symphonies for you and have command performances while you dine. On the other hand, I have it much better than George in many ways. Although I can’t summon fifty musicians to play Handel, I can choose to listen to works by Handel and a large variety of his successors nearly instantaneously, played by the best musicians in the world, who don’t complain even when I demand five or six consecutive performances. Chelsea was a big trip for George; but I’ve flown thousands of miles in the time it took him to go there and back. My palace, while not as large as St. James, is centrally heated and air conditioned. My doctors also know more tricks than just how to apply leeches. About the only thing George had better than the average IC reader was in the arena of personal service — George had a retinue to do his bidding, whereas all we have is Google.