Handel's The Harmonious Blacksmith

I found this little description of Handel’s delightful keyboard piece The Harmonious Blacksmith in an old book: Stories of Standard Teaching Pieces, by a certain Edward Baxter Perry. It was published in 1910 by Theo Presser Co. 1712 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

Edward Baxter Perry was an established American pianist‑lecturer whose books helped shape early‑20th‑century musical education in the United States. Blind from childhood, he had built a career not only as a performer but as a gifted communicator, someone who could make the European piano repertoire feel vivid and accessible to amateurs. By this point he was best known for his Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works, a series that blended musical explanation, anecdote, and gentle aesthetic guidance. His prose was clear, enthusiastic, and designed to help students and teachers understand what a piece was trying to express and how to listen to it with imagination.

In 1910 he published Stories of Standard Teaching Pieces, a companion to his earlier analytical volumes. It reflects the same mission: to democratise classical music appreciation for piano teachers, students, and the flourishing network of American music clubs. Perry organised widely used teaching repertoire by level and purpose, offering expressive cues, literary associations, and small narrative “legends” to help young pianists grasp a piece’s character. His writing from this period shows him at the height of his influence - an educator‑advocate who believed that understanding music’s emotional world was as important as mastering its technical demands.

The present anecdote does move into the realms of fantasy, however it is fair to say that for Perry, the literal truth of the story mattered far less than its power to ignite a student's imagination. In his view, a vivid myth was a perfectly legitimate tool if it helped a young player connect emotionally with the music. Writing with his characteristic warmth and descriptive flair, he introduced the piece to his readers with the following vivid narrative:

“This is decidedly the most famous of all Handel's works for the piano, was formerly in universal use, and still holds its own to some extent in popular favour, even appearing at times on the concert programs of prominent artists. It is a good study in clear, melodic phrasing, and crisp, clean-cut finger work.

It consists of a simple, cheerful theme with several increasingly difficult variations, a form once very much in vogue but now rather antiquated and seldom used. It is said to have been conceived under the following circumstances. Handel, who was living in England at the time, was on his way one summer afternoon to the chapel at Cannons [an estate near to Stanmore, Middlesex] to use the organ. He was caught in a sudden thunder shower and took temporary refuge in the village smithy. The sturdy, cheery smith was hard at work at his anvil and sang to himself as he worked, keeping time with the ringing rhythmic blows of the hammer.

This lusty, jovial song, to the fitting accompaniment of the hammer strokes on the iron, while the sparks flew in bright showers and the ruddy forge-fire glowed in the background, furnished Handel with the actual theme, as well as the general idea for this composition. This picture of simple village life and honest cheerful toil in old England should be borne clearly in mind by the player, and its mood reproduced in the music. Alas! for the hearty, healthy, happy yeoman of the old days whom it recalls! The type is wellnigh obsolete in our time.

The melody is supposed to be the song of the smith, note for note, as he sang it, and the suggestions of rhythmic hammer strokes, and clanging anvil, and flying sparks, are obvious and unmistakable. The atmosphere of the forge has been retained, but at the same time, mediocrity has been avoided.

This work is a bit of avowed realism, though written at a time when descriptive music was supposed to be unknown or disdained. The fact is that its beginnings are to be found even among the works of Handel, Haydn, and most of the other so-called severe classicists. Even Bach in his dance forms was pictorial."

 A little more factually than Perry, The Harmonious Blacksmith is the later nickname for the Air and Variations that closes Handel’s Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430, published in 1720 as part of his first harpsichord collection. Handel himself called it nothing more than an air with variations; the colourful title only emerged a century later, probably when the Bath music‑seller William Lintern - a former blacksmith - issued the piece separately around 1822. Romantic tales of Handel being inspired by a blacksmith’s hammering are Victorian inventions, but the tune does have earlier roots, echoing material in Playford’s English country dances and in Handel’s own youthful opera Almira.

Listen to George Frideric Handel’s The Harmonious Blacksmith played by Wilhelm Kempff on YouTube, here.