Where all violin music begins
Arcangelo Corelli published astonishingly little – six slim collections in a lifetime – yet few composers have changed music more. He is the father of modern violin playing and the perfecter of the concerto grosso, the form on which the whole baroque orchestra was built. Vivaldi, Handel and Bach all studied his scores like textbooks, and his Christmas Concerto remains one of the most beloved pages of the entire baroque.
Rome's quiet superstar
Born in 1653 – the same year as Pachelbel – and trained in Bologna, Corelli made his career in Rome, where the powerful competed for his services: first the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden, then Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he lived for two decades more as a friend than an employee. Violinists travelled from across Europe to study with him, and his pupils carried his method to every corner of the continent. The gentle, modest master led Rome's greatest orchestras for thirty years and died wealthy and honoured in 1713; his sound – noble, singing, perfectly balanced – became the common language of an entire musical era.
Corelli and Prague
Every baroque evening in Prague stands on Corelli's foundations. The concerto grosso he perfected is the very blueprint that Vivaldi, Handel and Bach – the pillars of the city's concert programmes – built their orchestral music upon, and his own La Folia variations and Christmas Concerto still appear on Prague's stages, the latter a December favourite. When a violinist raises the bow beneath a baroque vault tonight, the technique in that hand was codified by Corelli three centuries ago: in a very real sense, he plays at every concert in Prague.