CORELLI, ARCANGELO  BIOGRAPHY

Arcangelo Corelli was born at Fusignano in 1653 into a family that had enjoyed considerable prosperity since the fifteenth century. Legend even suggested descent from the Roman general Coriolanus and further improbable anecdotes surround a childhood during which he seems to have taken music lessons from a priest at Faenza, continued at Lugo, before, in 1666, moving to the famous musical centre of Bologna, where he was able to study the violin under teachers of the greatest distinction, their precise identity subject to various conjectures. The basilica of S. Petronio in Bologna boasted a musical establishment of considerable prestige under Maurizio Cazzati, with some 33 musicians. In addition the city had been the home of a number of learned academies since the middle of the sixteenth century, largely replaced in 1666 by the Accademia Filarmonica, an association that came to exercise wide influence.

By 1675 Corelli was in Rome, his presence recorded in various lists of violinists employed in the performance of oratorios and in the annual celebrations of the feast of St. Louis of France. Stories of a visit by Corelli to France before this, and of the jealousy of Lully, are generally considered apocryphal. In Rome, however, Corelli's career is well enough documented. He served as a chamber musician to Queen Christina of Sweden, at least intermittently, until her death in 1689, and in 1687 directed a large body of musicians, with 150 string players and 100 singers, in a concert in honour of the ambassador of King James II, Lord Castlemaine, entrusted with negotiations for the return of England to the Catholic faith. At the same time he received even more significant patronage from Benedetto Pamphili, great-nephew of Pope Innocent X, created Cardinal in 1681 and an exact contemporary of the composer. In 1687 Corelli became maestro di musica to the Cardinal and took up residence in his Palazzo on the Curso, with his pupil, the violinist Matteo Fornari and the Spanish cellist Lulier, his colleagues in many performances. While normally responsible for an orchestra of some ten players, there were occasions when very large groups of musicians were assembled.

In 1690 Cardinal Pamphili was appointed papal legate to Bologna and Corelli moved to the Palazzo della Cancelleria, of the newly created Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, the gifted young great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, who had acceded to the papacy in 1689. Cardinal Ottoboni remained Corelli's patron until the latter's death in 1713, thereafter behaving with generosity to his heirs. In Rome Corelli was held in great respect as a violinist and as a composer, although stories of less satisfactory performances during a visit to Naples, where he was defeated by the violin-writing of his colleague Alessandro Scarlatti, and of his inability to cope with the allegedly French style of the young Handel, suggest, at least, some technical limitations.

At his death Corelli left a large collection of pictures, bequeathing a painting of his own choice to Cardinal Ottoboni and a Brueghel to Cardinal Pamphili, with his musical instruments and manuscripts going to Matteo Fornad. By special papal indulgence he was buried in the Pantheon in Rome in a part of the church holding the remains of artists, sculptors and architects, his epitaph the work of his patron.

The surviving compositions of Corelli are relatively few in number but disproportionately far-reaching in their influence. He published four sets of a dozen trio sonatas each, in 1681, 1685, 1689 and 1694. In 1700 he dedicated his Opus 5 solo violin sonatas, a set of twelve, to Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg. All these works were re-published extensively during the composer's life-time and in the following years and widely imitated. The set of twelve Concerti grossi was finally published posthumously, with a dedication to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm. The concertos represent a collection of compositions that seem to have been known in Rome at least since the early 1680s.