Concertino: Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello

Ripieno: Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Continuo (cello, violone, harpsichord)

Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762), one of the great virtuoso violinists of his time, was also an elegant composer and important theorist. His books The Art of Playing on the Violin, A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick and a book on accompaniment are for us today important sources of information on performance practices of the time.

As a young man in Rome, Geminiani studied with Corelli, who remained a major influence on him both as a violinist and a composer. At the age of twenty-seven, he moved to London and lived first there and then in Dublin for the remainder of his life.

Geminiani wrote several sets of concerti grossi modeled on those of Corelli, but his first venture into the genre was not to write original music, but to arrange Corelli's sonatas for solo violin into concerti grossi. He published these concerto arrangements in two volumes without an opus number in 1726-1727. It was not only an homage to his former teacher but perhaps also a way of studying Corelli's music, much as Bach did in arranging concertos of Vivaldi and others. Corelli's brilliant solo violin pieces here became sparkling orchestral works, with a group of solo instruments contrasted against the larger ensemble. In doing this, Geminiani had to fill in counterpoint and harmony that was only implied in Corelli's original sonatas.

For some of the solo violin passages in the slow movements of these concerti, one might, according to one's taste, adapt Corelli's ornaments from his original violin sonatas. Those ornaments appeared in the first publication of the sonatas, where there are two versions of the violin part in the slow movements, one a simple and unadorned melodic line and the other an elaborately ornamented version attributed to Corelli himself.

Boston Baroque has adapted and used Corelli's ornaments in this way in performances, as well as on a recording of Geminiani's Concerto grosso in F. Both that concerto, which is based on Corelli's Sonata, Op. 5, No. 4, and Geminiani's La Follia, a concerto based on Corelli's Op. 5, No. 12, were recorded together with Vivaldi's Four Seasons on a Telarc CD.

Boston Baroque Performances

Back to resource library