Friday, April 7, 8.00pm
Sunday, April 9, 3.00pm
NEC's Jordan Hall

CLICK HERE for directions to NEC's Jordan Hall.

Listen, learn and enjoy. Grant Llewellyn invites you to ask questions during the performance by popular demand.

HANDEL: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 4
CORELLI: Sonata for Violin Op. 5, No. 9 in A Major
VIVALDI: Concerto in G Minor, RV 153
WEISS: Concerto a Cinque
GUERINI: Sonata for Cello
CAPORALE: Sonata for Cello in D Minor
CORELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 11 in B Flat
VIVALDI: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, RV 531

One musical form that seized the imagination of early 18th-century Europe was the concerto, with its dramatic contrasts between soloist and orchestra, and its opportunities for brilliant display. Arcangelo Corelli, the “Orpheus of the Violin,” became one of the most successful and famous instrumentalists in Europe in his lifetime. His violin sonatas show off his refined sense of compositional balance, as well as offering the soloist a chance to demonstrate his skill at passagework and ornamentation. Corelli’s contemporary, the fiery Venetian Antonio Vivaldi, was the opposite in musical temperament to him: his concertos are bursting with energy and fire. Finally, the well-traveled G.F. Handel took both of these styles and integrated them into his own remarkable musical language. His Opus 6 concerti grossi are a tribute to Corelli’s own concertos, but with far more spacious proportions: each movement is like walking into another room of a splendid, well-appointed Baroque palace.

For further information:
http://www.fathom.com/feature/35186/
A discussion of Corelli’s career and art, with musical examples

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/vivaldi.html
A good concise biography of Vivaldi, and a discussion of his music

http://gfhandel.org/
An excellent source of Handelian information on the web