At the end of his life, the Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli prepared his classic set of 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 for publication; they were published in 1714, shortly after Corelli's death. Each of these dozen works was scored for strings, with solo parts for two violins and a cello. In 1739, Handel implicitly paid tribute to Corelli, with his own great set of 12 Concerti, also Op. 6. While Corelli's concerti were refined through years of performances, Handel's set was produced in about five weeks: either Handel's Muse was particularly strong, or his creditors especially anxious to be paid! (To be fair, Handel recycled several movements from works for other forces.) The set of concerti were sold by subscription for a fee of two guineas; Handel attracted over 100 interested musicians and members of the aristocracy.

Handel, following Corelli’s example, employed a concertino group of two violins and a cello in the bulk of his own Op. 6 set, the one exception being the seventh concerto on this afternoon’s program. (Ironically, it was this one Handel concerto grosso without a solo concertino that Arnold Schönberg used as the model for his Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, pitting a string quartet against a modern orchestra with winds and percussion in a mind-blowing deconstruction of Handel’s original composition.)

Handel opens the concerto with a brief, ten-bar slow introduction that leads to a vibrant four-part fugue, whose subject begins with the same note repeated 14 times, the notes decreasing in length as they proceed; it concludes with three bars marked Adagio. A slow movement in G minor and 3/4 time follows, consisting of three 10-bar phrases, after which the opening phrase is repeated in the manner of a recapitulation; a three-bar coda that provides the opportunity for a cadenza serves to modulate from G minor to D major. The third movement, in slow 4/4 time and marked Andante, returns to the home key of B-flat major, opening with a four-bar march-like theme that returns in ritornello fashion between each succeeding musical episode. The concluding two-part dance movement, also in B-flat, is a hornpipe in 3/2 time. 

© 2002 Jeff Eldridge