Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso da camera Op 6 no 12 F major
Arcangelo Corelli
born on 17 February 1653 in Fusignano
died on 8 January 1713 in Rome
Date of composition:
ca. 1680
CD recommendation:
Amandine Beyer (violin), Gli Incogniti
Arcangelo Corelli probably composed his 12 Concerti grossi in Rome as early as the 1680s, but they were not published until 1714. They are probably the earliest concertos for solo instruments
that exist in music history. Two violins and a cello performed in succession and against each other with a ripieno, i.e. an accompanying full orchestra of strings and basso continuo. These
concerti grossi subsequently became influential for Vivaldi and his contemporaries up to Handel and even the modern era. The 12th concerto consists of 5 movements, which still recall the old
suite structure with alternating dances. But the concerto already brings the concertante movements, which later become the three-movement fast-slow-fast scheme. Dances become tense confrontations
between full communal music-making and soloistically prominent instruments. We are in the first beginnings of the genre of "violin concertos", indeed of solo concertos in general.
Listen here!
Listening companion:
I. Preludio: Adagio
A slow prelude opens the round of movements; after a few bars, two violin parts begin to sing in balanced silence above a slowly moving bass, alternately as soloists and in interplay with the tutti of all instruments.
II. Allegro
But now the playful quarrel begins (Concerto). The first violin immediately sets the tempo, and everything now rushes forward, into the rush of time, whereby the drive of the music makes one forget the time. Solos and full orchestra take turns, but again and again the first violin with its typical figurations is the driving force, creating a prefiguration of a real violin concerto.
Headline 3
This middle movement brings calm back into time, orchestra and soloists rest, the slowness becomes a contrast to the haste in time... beautiful how the solo instruments end contemplatively at the end.
IV. Sarabanda
As usual in the old suite structure, a dance movement follows briefly, which comes across as loose and moving, but it is only the dance-like introduction to the final movement that follows, a giga.
V. Giga: Allegro
Once again the first violin takes over and sets the tempo, a reminder of the old dance of the giga, but hardly danceable any more, but a whirling final spurt, as if the speed of passing time had already changed at the end of the 17th century.