Helicon Ensemble Presents: Children of Orpheus & The Music of Arcangelo Corelli

By Nancy Hager

On Sunday, November 8, the Helicon Ensemble will present a concert entitled “Children of Orpheus.”  Not the Orpheus of Greek mythology, the hero in operas by Monteverdi (1607) and Gluck (1762), who used his powers as a poet and musician to secure entry into the underworld.  Helicon’s Orpheus is Arcangelo Corelli (1653- 1713), called “the new Orpheus of our time” in a 1689 treatise by the theorist Angelo Bermardo.  Helicon’s program will explore what inspired the admiration of Bernardo and so many others, securing Corelli’s fame during his lifetime and his continued influence after his death.

Corelli was born in a small town in Romagna, moving in 1666 to Bologna where there was a flourishing school of violinists.  Advances in violin making by Stradivari, Amati, and Guarneri during the 16th century spurred exploration of the instrument’s capacity and contributed to the violin’s ascendancy during the Baroque period.  At age 17 Corelli was reportedly accepted into Bologna’s prestigious Accademia Filarmonica.  By the mid 1670s he was in Rome where he quickly established himself as a member of various ensembles sponsored by such wealthy patrons, as Christina, the former Swedish Queen, Cardinal Pamphili, and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, nephew of Pope Alexander VIII.  Corelli actually lived at Ottoboni’s palace where visiting dignitaries and musicians attended Monday evening concerts that featured works composed and performed by Corelli.

Although much admired as a performer, Corelli did not play a major role in the development of violin technique. The English music historian, Charles Burney, reported that Corelli was unable to execute his part in an overture by Handel because, as Corelli protested, he did not understand the French idiom.  There are other accounts to the effect that he had difficulty executing passages in a high register. His fame as a violinist likely rested on his performances of his own works where the lyricism and expressiveness of his melodic material suggest a more cantabile style of playing than the virtuosity required in works of other baroque composers.

At a time when his contemporaries typically churned out a steady stream of operas, church music, orchestral and chamber music, Corelli’s known output is modest - just 72 sonatas and concertos, all designated for strings and continuo. (the exception, one posthumous sonata for two trumpets).  Although small in number, they became known through collections published between 1681 and 1714 - four sets of 12 trio sonatas each, one set of 12 violin sonatas, and one set of 12 concerti grossi.  All were widely circulated and reprinted in various arrangements and transcriptions, more than any other composer of his day.   

Corell’s influence was also spread through his teaching, Francesco Gasparini and probably Francesco Geminiami being among his students. The German organist and composer Georg Muffat sought him out on a visit to Rome.  He states in the preface to his own concerti grossi of 1701 that “having noticed the great variety which this style admits of, I began to compose some of these concerti , which I tried out with the aforesaid Arcangelo Corelli, to whom I am much indebted for many useful observations in respect of his collections….”   Corelli was especially admired by the English.  Roger North noted in the memoirs of his music travels that “most of the nobility and gentry that have travelled in Italy affected to learn of Corelli.”  Handel who met Corelli when he was in Rome in the early 1700s reported that “his two dominant characteristics were his admiration of pictures which they say he never paid for, and an extreme parsimony.  His wardrobe was not extensive.  Ordinarily he went about clothed in black, and he used to wear a dark cloak; he was always on foot, and protested vigorously if one tried to make him take a carriage.”

Corelli’s four collections of trio sonatas constitute a major contribution to this most important genre of middle baroque chamber music.  The term trio refers to the texture of three melodic lines, two in the same range (violins in Corelli’s case) and a third bass line performed by a continuo of cello and harpsichord (or other instrument capable of improvising a harmonic support).

The concerto, which was just emerging as a major instrumental genre, requires a small and a large instrumental ensemble.  In Corelli’s day the “ripieno” or full group usually consisted of 12 to 16 string players and continuo, the “concertino” of one or more soloists, for Corelli the same instrumentation as his trio sonatas. In the generation after Corelli, the concerto grosso with its small group of soloists was largely eclipsed by the solo concerto, where a single instrument with its greater capacity for virtuoso display is pitted against the larger mass of the orchestra.

Some of Corelli’s sonatas and concertos are “da chiesa”, (of the church), performed during the celebration of the canonical hours and comprised of movements of diverse time signatures and tempos.  The movements of the sonatas and concertos “da camera,” (of the chamber), are modeled on allemandes, correntes, gigues and other dance types considered inappropriate for church use.

On the whole Corelli’s style is considered conservative, achieving contrast through subtle dynamic shadings and, in the concertos, an occasionally more agile style of writing for the soloists.  The potential for collaboration, competition, and dialogue between solo and tutti forces made the concerto an ideal vehicle for achieving the vivid  expression and dramatic gestures characteristic of the Baroque aesthetic, as evident in the later concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Torelli, Locatelli, and so many others.

The judgment of Corelli’s contemporaries and followers -the “Children of Orpheus” - was eloquently summed up by the English composer and historian Charles Burney:  “The Concertos of Corelli seem to have withstood all the attacks of time and fashion with more firmness than any of his other works.  The Harmony is so pure, so rich and so grateful; the parts are so clearly and judiciously disposed; and the effect of the whole …so majestic, solemn, and sublime that they preclude criticism and make us forget that there is any other music of the same kind existing.”