1653–1713 · Baroque
Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque era, one of the founders of solo violin concert music. His trio sonatas and concerti grossi became a model of the genre for contemporaries and pupils across Europe. For players today, his music offers a clear school of ensemble playing and a living taste of the Baroque style.
On 17 February 1653, in the small town of Fusignano, a son was born to a family of well-off burghers — Arcangelo Corelli. His father had died five weeks earlier, and the boy was raised by his mother Santa together with four older siblings, among them Ippolito, Domenico and Giacinto.
By 1670, at the age of seventeen, Corelli became a member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna — a rarity for a musician that young. He was then known by the nickname "Il Bolognese": it appears on the title pages of the first three collections of his works.
Bologna was the second most important city of the Papal States, with its own university and a vibrant musical life: several large churches kept permanent orchestras and choirs, music publishers were active, and noble and clerical patrons funded musical academies. The most famous was the city's Accademia Filarmonica, founded in 1666; the city also had a violin school founded by Ercole Gaibara, whose methods Corelli also absorbed.
Corelli studied in Bologna before settling in Rome, where he spent most of his career under the protection of wealthy patrons. From 1671 he made his home there: he studied counterpoint with Matteo Simonelli, who was influenced by the style of Palestrina, served as a violinist in Roman churches and as concertmaster of the Teatro Capranica orchestra, and also directed various instrumental ensembles.
His presence in Rome is documented from 1675: the violinist, then known as "Arcangelo the Bolognese", was invited to play in Lenten oratorios and in ensembles gathered by wealthy patrons. Among them was Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, in whose oratorios Corelli played from 1676 to 1679.
Rome was a cosmopolitan capital that drew musicians from across Europe: noble and clerical patrons competed with lavish performances, though stable musical establishments at the churches were few, so musicians often moved from one occasion to the next. The Church shaped the city's cultural life more strongly than in Bologna, and much depended on the taste of a given pope — Pope Clement IX, for instance, wrote librettos himself and patronised secular music.
In 1681 a collection of Corelli's trio sonatas was published, marking the start of the composer's European fame. In 1687 Corelli directed festive musical performances in honour of Queen Christina of Sweden, and from 1687 to 1690 he led the chapel of Cardinal Pamphili.
From 1690 Corelli led the chapel of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, directed his concerts and carried on teaching. For a long time he was in charge of the famous Monday concerts at the Ottoboni palace and was received into the highest circles of the Roman aristocracy.
Corelli was elected to the Roman Arcadian Academy in 1706, one of the most prestigious artistic societies of his day, and there received the academic name Arcomelo Erimanteo.
Contemporaries considered Corelli one of the finest violinists of his generation. The clarity, balance and fresh harmonies of his music are often linked to classical principles, even though he himself belonged to the Baroque era; as a performer and teacher he helped the violin gain a place among the leading solo instruments, and through his pupils his style of playing spread across Europe.
Corelli himself left behind no treatise on violin playing, yet he taught many pupils and in effect founded his own school. Despite his renown in this field, surviving accounts by contemporaries of his personal technique are few and inconsistent, a point still debated among scholars today.
Among the technical devices Corelli brought into wide use on the violin were double stops, playing on a sustained open bass string, harmonics, arpeggios, tremolo, rubato, staccato and bariolage.
Not much is recorded about Corelli as a conductor, apart from the fact that for many years he directed a Roman church orchestra and that of the Academy of Drawing Arts, together with countless groups put together for one-off occasions — private recitals for the aristocracy, civic festivals and official receptions. What contemporaries did praise was the discipline of his players: precise attacks, a powerful collective sound, and rehearsals he would halt the moment a single bow moved out of step with the rest.
Before that, musical ensembles were markedly smaller: the orchestra of the church of San Luigi, for instance, did not exceed twenty musicians even on grand occasions, and usually numbered around ten to fifteen players.
It was Corelli's generation that shifted the orchestra's balance toward the strings, above all the violins: ensembles grew markedly larger, instruments were grouped into homogeneous sections, and singers were separated from the orchestra. The musicians' arrangement changed too — this is how the seating typical of the concerto grosso took hold, with a small group of soloists (the concertino) set apart from the main body of the orchestra (the ripieno).
Corelli did more than conduct and lead the violins: he also recruited the musicians himself and paid their wages, taking on everything a modern concert promoter would do today. For special occasions he once assembled an orchestra of roughly a hundred and fifty players, far beyond what was usual then, and historians liken his place in Rome's musical life to the role Jean-Baptiste Lully held in France under Louis XIV.
From 1710 Corelli stopped performing in public, and at the end of 1712 he left Cardinal Ottoboni's palace. He died in Rome in January 1713 and, by order of the Pope, was buried in the Pantheon.
Corelli's collection of concerti grossi (Op. 6) appears to have been written already in the 1680s, but it was only published in Amsterdam in 1714 — a year after the composer's death.
For a long time after his death, musicians continued to learn the broad style of playing from Corelli's compositions.
Corelli's influence on the music of his contemporaries and of later generations of composers was very great: it can be traced in the work of Tartini, Vivaldi, Geminiani and Locatelli in Italy, of Couperin, Rameau and Leclair in France, of Handel, Bach, Telemann and Muffat in Germany, of Eccles in England, and of Benda in Bohemia. This list shows how far-reaching that influence was.
Corelli's fame did not fade after his death. Historians place him among the greatest masters of the transition between the 17th and 18th centuries, and count him among the very first composers of the classical kind.
Corelli reached mastery through several roles at once: as a violinist, as director of Rome's finest chapels, as a composer for the violin, and as a teacher of the instrument.
He brought the main instrumental genres of the Baroque era to classical clarity — secular and church trio sonatas (sonata da camera and da chiesa), violin sonatas with continuo, and concerti grossi — and contributed to the development of the violin concerto form.
Everything he composed fits into forty-eight trio sonatas, twelve violin sonatas with continuo, and twelve concerti grossi, yet even so modest a catalogue was enough to create musical models that became an example for entire generations of composers.
The collection of solo violin sonatas (Op. 5) closes with "La Folia" — twenty-three variations on a folk dance tune of Spanish-Portuguese origin. Contemporaries and pupils described Corelli's own playing as expressive and noble: he could be lyrical and thoughtful, and, by turns, passionate and swift.
Among those inspired by Corelli's model are named Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Couperin and Telemann; together with Torelli and Vivaldi, he was one of those who established the concerto as a genre that remains popular today.
His sonatas are still part of music-school teaching programmes and at the same time are performed in concerts today — not only a historical repertoire but an active one.
Corelli prepared his works for publication over years of repeated revision; he appears to have spent more than thirty years on his final collection alone.
Unlike the typical Baroque taste for extravagance, oddity and asymmetry, Corelli's music leans toward clarity, symmetry and measured restraint. The forms themselves were not his invention, yet he brought them to a rare degree of poise and perfection, which made him one of the leading figures of classicism in music.
Among his pupils were Matteo Fornari, Giovanni Battista Somis, Pietro Castrucci, Francesco Gasparini and Francesco Geminiani — violinists who carried Corelli's manner of playing to different countries of Europe.
Among the Op. 6 concerti grossi, the Eighth stands out — the so-called "Christmas Concerto": it closes with a separate pastorale written to be performed on Christmas Eve. On the site this piece (Op. 6, No. 8) is available arranged for string quartet, at the "Beginner+" level — it is the best place to start getting to know Corelli at the instrument.