[Peter Allsop] Arcangelo Corelli

III PIIUACE

he: dissemination of his music h.u been fully investigJtcd only in Britain, where the process If its ~ssilllibtioJl has bccn comprehensively chanl'd: I alii particularly indebtl'd to Owain Edwards, WilIiam Webl'r, and Harry Diack Jolmstone. In other countries, espl'cially l;e:rmany, much work is still needed to establish till: precisl' roots of its u"Jnsnmsion, and I can <lIlly olTer tl'ntativc findings.

SiIKl' it was in Britain that Corclli achieved his must enduring SUCCl'SS, it is surpri\ing that 110 full-Ienboth British study has yet appcared. Marc I'incherle's elegant and illuminating COTrIli <'I SI'I/Iellll's has bcen available in3n English translation since 1956, but in the intervening fony yl'ars valuable archival research has shed new light on Corc:lli's aClivities-much of this the product of Italian and Gemlan-speaking musicologISts, whose p.1rticular contributions arc Jcknowledged in Chaptcr I. At the same tinll:' cxtensivc source studi~'S have now produced IICW editions of most of Corelli's works to replace the scores of Joachim and Chrysandcr, which h~ve done duty since the late nincteenth century. Among Ihe contributors to the new Grsallllaus.I1.,IK, Ibm Jo~chim Marx llIust be singled out for his painstaking documentation of thc Ottoboni household, his rationaliz;ltion of the apocrypha, and his C.I,a/"R""laisQIlIlr-nuw the IIldispcnsablc work of rcferencc lor all future studk-s of dIe composer. It scemcd cxigcnt dut a collation of this ncw evidencc be madc available to the English-speaking re~der.

Over thc years, far k-ss attention h.u bcen paid to the music itself. and while there arc a number of penetrating analyses of individual works, his output .u a whole still needs proper c\·alu.lIion; this I hope to provide in the present study. As the vital contextual framework of Corelli's trio sonatas had alre~dy been co\'ercd 111 my earlier book, I have tried not to dupli­cate this mJterial, but the solo sonata and concertu requircd a greatcr ;Ullount of gelleral ink)r­matioll. Apart from this, the lincs of cnquiry h~ve been focused closely on the specitic l'1l\·irol1l11l'nts in which Cordli workcd so as to evaluate the degree of their influence on the liJTIllatioll of his own music~ idiom, which is then itself scrutinized in depth. No onc, perhaps. would deny the extreme historical importance of An:angclo Corelli: I hope that the present study will funher the understanding of the nature of his genius.

I should like to thmk I'cter Walls for his valuable comments on my script, ~nd HaIlS Joachim Marx for some useful bibliographical references. I would also like to acknowlcdge Ill)' debt to the Uritish Acadcmy fi)r providing the funding for all extendcd period of study in hal),.

P.A.

Lisl of Plait's Lisl of Tablrs List of AbbTrI1ia,i,,/IS

The legend: Fact and Fiction 1 11 Uolognese 3 nome: The Early Years " nome: The Lite Years

5 Thc Free Sonatas a J (I) 6 The Free Sonat.u a J (1) 7 The Sonate da Camera a J 8 The 'Solo' Sonatas 9 Thc Concerti Gros.\i

10 The It~i~n legacy 11 Dissemination

JjjbliQ~lapllY

M"si( Exalll/'/t's l"do:

Contents

I TIle Man

11 The Music

x

xi xii

6')

91 10(,

120

139

t53 175

200