Brimming with exhilarating dance tunes and colourful sonorities, Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks are his two most popular orchestral works. They were composed, respectively, for royal water parties on the River Thames in August 1715 and July 1717, and to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749, with a fireworks display in Green Park, London. While the July 1717 entertainment was an unqualified success – the King “caused it to be plaid three times in going and returning” – the Royal Fireworks of 1749 was “ill-conducted” and a pyrotechnic disaster, with one of the pavilions catching fire! This is the first recording of Music for the Royal Fireworks to include a transverse flute, as indicated in the original manuscript. It is used to especially beautiful effect in La Paix.