Corelli travelled in Germany and was for a time attached to the Court of the Elector of Bavaria. Then he went to Paris in 1672, and, returning to Italy, settled in Rome. He became a favorite in society and lived in the household of the splendid Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, taking charge of that prince’s music. His regular Monday concerts were a feature of the social and artistic life in Rome.
Pupils swarmed to him. One of them was Geminiani. Corelli became one of the great personages of Rome. When Christina of Sweden went to Rome, Corelli conducted an Orchestra of a hundred and fifty men in her palace. When he died in 1713 he was buried in the Pantheon, not far from Raphael. For years after his death a musical service was held annually at his tomb, where some of his compositions were piously played by his pupils.
Geminiani’s estimate of Corelli’s character seems very just. He said: “His merit was not depth of learning, like that of Alessandro Scarlatti; nor a great fancy, nor rich invention in melody or harmony, but a nice ear and most delicate taste, which led him to select the most pleasing harmonies and melodies and to construct the parts so as to produce the most delightful effect upon the ear.”
At the time of Corelli’s greatest reputation Geminiani asked Scarlatti what he thought of him. Scarlatti answered that “he found nothing greatly to admire in his composition, but was extremely struck with the manner in which he played his concertos and his nice management of his band and uncommon accuracy of the whole performance gave the concertos an amazing effect; and that, even to the eye as well as the ear”; for, continued Geminiani, “Corelli regarded it as essential to the ensemble of a band that their bows should all move exactly together, all up or all down; so, that at his rehearsals, which constantly preceded every public performance of his concertos, he would immediately stop the band if he discovered one irregular bow.”
“There can be no doubt that above all Corelli was a great violin-player and that all he wrote grew out of the very nature of his instrument. In his Chamber-Sonatas and Concerto-Grossi he must be considered the founder of the style of orchestral writing on which the future development is based; while in the Sonatas (op. 5) which have merely an accompanying fundamental bass, he gives a model for the solo sonata; and, thereby, for all writing for the violin as a solo-instrument.
“All his works are characterized by conciseness and lucidity of thought and form, and by a dignified, almost aristocratic, bearing. The slow movements show genuine pathos as well as grace, and bring out in a striking manner the singing-power of the violin.
“Corelli’s Gavottes, Sarabandes and other pieces with the form and rhythm of dances, do not materially differ from similar productions of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, although, like everything that he wrote, they are distinguished by great earnestness and dignity of style and are especially well adapted to the instrument. He was not so much an innovator as a reformer; he did not introduce new striking effects; it cannot be denied that his technique was a limited one—he never goes beyond the third position—but, by rigidly excluding everything that appeared to him contrary to the nature of the instrument, and by adopting and using in the best possible way everything in the existing technique which he considered conformable to the nature of the violin, he not only hindered a threatened development in the wrong direction, but also gave to this branch of art a sound and solid basis, which his successors could, and did, build upon successfully.”[50]
Burney tells us that “After the publication of Corelli’s works, the violin seems to have increased in favor all over Europe. There was hardly a town in Italy, about the beginning of the present century (the Eighteenth), where some distinguished performer on that instrument did not reside.”
The next link in our chain is Scarlatti.
Alessandro Scarlatti was born in Trapani, Sicily, in 1659. We find him at a comparatively early age settled in Naples, where he was celebrated as a singer, and a performer on the harp and the harpsichord and as a composer of operas. He was the chief of the Neapolitan School. Modern critics have proved that on his ideas the great Gluck built his musical edifice.