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maybe Boro, our fireworks expert can clarify whether fireworks must use gunpowder to work?~Lal
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Fireworks expert hey? Well I'm not a pyrotechnic chemist that creates them, but I can share the basic ingredients needed in fireworks and what creates those dazzling displays.
One of the needs (and probably it is the biggest one) is black powder. Black powder is necessary for two things, first the initial burst of the shell out of the tube and then also to ignite the time-delay fuse in the shell which sends the pellets or stars bursting out creating the colorful display. Basically stick a shell in a coardboard tube, and attach a fuse. In the shell there are seperate chambers, where in one is the black powder, and in another are what is called the 'stars.' And the stars are just little cubes of different chemicals. It's these chemicals that create the various colors...barium, sodium, aluminum...etc, just a wide range of these stars of various chemicals creates the reds, blues, greens...etc.
Because fireworks were first created by the Chinese not for entertainment purposes, but to scare of evil spirits. It's the black powder that creates the loud bang, and if you only use black powder you would only have a yellowish-orangish light. Where when you pack the shell with different chemicals you get different colors and that it is that discovery which led to fireworks being used for entertainment. Because, tt's not the actual explosion that creates the various color, what you're watching is these 'stars' of chemicals burning when they are thrown out of the shell. Then depending upon how you pack these 'stars' of chemicals in the shell determines the shape that is created when the stars are sent flying out of the shell.
There's a bunch of other complicated things that create different effects now adays. For instance, you can put an some sort of oxidizer which slows down the burning of the stars and that creates the drizzling effect, as the stars burn slower. But that's the basic firework in a nut'shell.'
You may be able to use something else to fuel the shell and create the explosion, but the chinese found black powder worked well for what they wanted...a loud bang which would scare away evil spirits. And over time fireworks grew into being used for dazzling entertainment, so we just stuck with black powder to creae the explosion and then packed the shell with various pellets of chemicals and depending upon their placement is what creates all the seperate colors and the shape of the firework. As the black powder is necessary for two things in the firework, to create that initial burst out of the tube, and then to set off the time-delay fuse which spreads the 'stars' out of the shell. When the firework reaches its maximum height, the time-delay fuse sends the stars flying out of shell.
Hope you have learned all you need to know for creating your own fireworks now (just kidding by the way I do not advocate that
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As far as Gandalf's fireworks, my guess would be he enhances it's entertainment with his magic. As we are currently struggling with designs like a walmart smiley face. Where Gandalf has a firework that creates a dragon and a large mountain. So, either Gandalf understood even more complex physics than our pyrotechnic chemists have yet to figure out, or Gandalf magically enhances his fireworks for entertainment purposes.