Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Italian violinist and composer
Date of Birth: 17.02.1653
Country: Italy

Biography of Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer who had a significant influence on the music of his contemporaries and subsequent generations. He was born on February 17, 1653, in the ancient town of Fusignano in Lower Romagna, into an enlightened family. Corelli studied violin playing in Bologna under local masters such as G.B. Benvenuti and the famous Venetian virtuoso-improviser Brunoli. At a young age, Corelli achieved such mastery in composition that he was admitted to the Bologna Philharmonic Academy at the age of seventeen.

In the late 1670s and early 1680s, Corelli appeared in Rome, where he played in churches, theaters, and academies with continuous success. He started as the second violinist in the theater ensemble, then became a soloist, and eventually became the conductor of church concerts. Despite the unanimous and wide recognition from both experts and the general public in the capital, Corelli remained level-headed. He had a great artistic temperament, diverse interests (he passionately loved and knew painting, and his collection included works by Poussin, Bruegel, Maratta, Trevizani, and other masters), and a sober and even cold mind. Corelli focused and diligently improved his skills under the guidance of composer M. Simonelli and in the early 1680s, he presented his first major work - a collection of twelve sonatas for a string trio accompanied by an organ. In the early 1700s, he joined the "Arcadian Academy" in Rome, where he became acquainted with Handel, Bernard Pasquini, and Alessandro Scarlatti.

Despite his proud and independent nature, typical of great artists, Corelli was forced to bind himself to the service of wealthy patrons - Cardinals Pamphili and Ottoboni. It is worth noting that these church figures, being passionate music lovers, appreciated the art of the great violinist and provided him with great support. Corelli served as their conductor from 1687 until his death in 1713. During this period, he created a significant portion of his trio sonatas, the famous solo violin sonatas with harpsichord accompaniment (1700), and eventually the concerti grossi (1712). Living a modest life and never leaving the country, Corelli gained worldwide fame and left behind a school that included remarkable musicians such as Pietro Locatelli, Francesco Geminiani, Giovanni Battista Somis, and others. The greatest violinist of the 18th century, Giuseppe Tartini, was also a follower of Corelli.

It is difficult to name another composer whose work received such unconditional and unanimous recognition during his lifetime. This is likely due not only to his genius, hard work, and unmatched artistic charm but also to the fact that he harmoniously and fully responded to the questions that instrumental culture of his country and era had already posed. Corelli's creative legacy is contained in six opuses: four sets of twelve trio sonatas published in 1681, 1685, 1689, and 1694, twelve solo sonatas with bass, and twelve concerti grossi.

Even the first twelve trio sonatas in 1681 opened a new page in the history of Italian instrumental music, and with each new opus, artistic perfection increased. The solo sonatas of Opus 5 and the concerti of Opus 6 were the pinnacle of Corelli's work, in a sense, unrivaled. It is noteworthy that despite his connections with church circles, this great Italian composer did not write much sacred music. As for those sonatas by Corelli that were still occasionally referred to as "church," they were not only entirely secular in their figurative content but also never designated as such by the author. Moreover, Corelli was the first to replace the accompanying organ with a harpsichord in non-dance violin sonatas, completely emancipating them from the church. Corelli, as a composer and virtuoso, established a style in violin art that combined the profound life content of music with the harmonious perfection of form, Italian emotionalism with the dominance of rational, logical principles. "Every work," he wrote, "should be based on reason and the study of examples left by the most outstanding masters."

During that time, Baroque aesthetics and the excessively artificial poetry of the Marinists partly influenced the style of violin playing, which often suffered from the excessive use of virtuosic techniques. The excessive concentration of expressive effects created a whirlwind style in violin performance, an intensity of emotional tone that could often be observed in sculptural groups, church facades, and palace ceilings of the time. Corelli opposed all of this with strict emotional restraint, clarity, balance of form, and wise economy in means and techniques of expressiveness. He eschewed affectation, and the naked immediacy of expression was also foreign to his artistic nature. His technique, unparalleled at the time, was entirely devoted to the artistic interpretation of the work. He played with a soft, melodious, and deep sound, balancing the tone with expressive and nuanced variations.

Corelli's work is genuinely folk-oriented. The rhythms of Italian folk dances can be heard in the dance genres, especially in the jigs of his suites. One of the most perfect examples of his style is the famous jig from the Sonata No. 5 in G minor, with its captivating whirlwind and perfectly structured form, based on the rhythmic figure of the tarantella. The most popular among his solo violin compositions, the D minor Sonata, is written in the form of variations on a theme of a Portuguese folk song about a mad girl and her unhappy love. The joyful finale of the "Christmas" Concerto No. 8 is a poetic picture that masterfully recreates the sound of a peasant instrumental ensemble with bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, and flutes. Corelli is folk-like as a musician-artist, capturing his people with their lives, ideals, and passions in classically clear images.

With his grandeur and temperament of a southerner combined with sober rationalism, these images required breadth and space for their embodiment. And Corelli found these expansive forms by turning to the genres of sonata and concerto - genres well-known to his predecessors and now capturing his attention as well.

Corelli's sixty sonatas are divided into several groups based on various genre and structural characteristics: forty-eight of them are trios, twelve are solos, thirty are church sonatas with organ, and thirty are with harpsichord. In his last, sixth opus, Corelli published twelve Grand Concertos (Concerti grossi). Alongside Handel's and J.S. Bach's concertos, these final works of the master represent the most perfect examples in the history of the pre-classical concerto genre. We witness a wonderful form of an early string orchestra. Thus, Corelli laid the foundation for the further development of symphonic music.

Corelli's contemporaries left us few but important testimonies of his magnificent conducting skills. He achieved extremely precise and subtle phrasing in the score. The ensemble sounded perfectly cohesive in terms of tuning, strokes, dynamics, and phrasing. Deep expressiveness was combined with noble simplicity.

Corelli's style, with its clearly evident folk roots, emotionally filled yet concise and modest, restrained yet grand, distant from rhetoric and the excesses of expression and structure, is remarkably harmonious and balanced in the interpretation of form. It cannot be contained within the framework of Baroque or 17th-century Classicism styles. Rather, it could be defined as a style that preceded the classical era of the 18th century.

In our century, after a prolonged period of oblivion or semi-oblivion, Corelli's concerti grossi resounded again in concert halls, contributing to the development of good taste and the education of both audiences and performers.

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