A review of the work and style of the violinist and composer, Arcangelo Corelli.
This paper looks at Arcangelo Corelli, the famous Italian violinist and composer whose role in music history is great, despite the fact that he wrote only a few works as only six opus numbers can be attributed to him. It examines how Arcangelo Corelli had a huge influence on form, style, and instrumental technique that lasted long after his death and how it spread beyond local and national confines to influence composers and performers around the world. It shows how is he is one of the first composers to derive his fame exclusively from instrumental composition and to have his works still admired and studied long after their initial popularity died off.
“In the Concerto Grosso in G minor, there are different tempos indicated for each section, such as Vivace, Grave, Allegro, Adagio, and Largo. Composers in the Baroque period, unlike those in earlier times, often used a work or phrase to indicate the approximate tempo at which they wished their compositions to be played. These are inevitably vague, and they often suggest the mood as much as the speed of a composition. Moreover, they were often used inconsistently by composers or defined in contradictory way by different writers on music from the period. Quantz had a systematic table of the approximate speeds measured against the human pulse.”