The prolific George Frideric Handel frequently composed major works at breath-taking speed. The most famous example is Messiah, which was completed in about three weeks. The twelve magnificent Concerti Grossi of his Opus 6 are yet another instance: they were written in a month’s time in 1739—or, as Baroque conductor Martin Pearlman has observed, at the rate of a full concerto every two-and-a-half to three days! Some scholars rank them in importance with Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos, also masterpieces of the concerto grosso genre.

These enchanting works were written in autumn 1739 at a time when Handel was absorbed in composing oratorios. They had a very practical purpose: Handel needed new instrumental works to perform during the pauses between the oratorios’ sections. And there was another reason, which relates to the Geminiani/Corelli pieces we’ll hear at the end of this program. As we’ll find out later, the English had a passion for the works of the by-then-deceased Arcangelo Corelli, a master who had created only a small body of work. Handel’s publisher John Walsh urged him to write concerti grossi in the manner of Corelli to meet this potentially lucrative demand. 

Although Handel somewhat followed the concerto grosso model of Corelli’s Opus 6, his concerti were considerably more elaborate and more varied in style from one concerto to the next. In a flexible, improvisatory fashion, they freely included dance movements with more purely abstract music designated only by tempo markings. 

We’ll hear the seventh Concerto, which differs from its mates in that it is purely orchestral and contains none of the solo parts usually featured in a concerto grosso. An imposing but very brief Largo serves as a prelude. Then we hear a dynamic Allegro fugue with an extraordinary fugue subject that opens with fourteen repetitions of the note F, growing progressively faster.

A very beautiful slow movement, Largo e piano, follows: music that is simple in form yet possesses great expressive depth. It consists of four melodic strains (the last a repeat of the first) of exactly ten measure in length; each comes to a cadence before being succeeded by the next. In fourth place comes an Andante with an unusually rhythmic, determined pace and a charmingly sly melody for the violins.

The Concerto closes with a spirited Hornpipe. Once associated with sailors, this English dance evolved into one of the alternative dances in the Baroque suite; Handel also used one memorably in his Water Music. As we’ll hear in this example, the hornpipe makes much use of rhythmic syncopations.

During the first half of the 18th century, Georg Philipp Telemann was Germany's most admired composer, with a popularity rivaling Handel's in England and far exceeding Bach's. When the post of Kantor or music director of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig fell open in 1722, Telemann was the Leipzig City Council's first choice to fill the vacancy. But both he and a second candidate were unable to take the job, and the councilors regretfully settled on Bach as a third choice. 

Many music lovers of the period found Bach's music too old-fashioned, learned, and exhausting to listen to, while Telemann's music was preferred as more progressive, more melodic, and more grateful to the ears. But throughout the 19th century, Bach's star steadily rose while Telemann's descended below the horizon. Only in the 20th century, as scholars and performers began delving deeper into the riches of the Baroque period, did they rediscover this most prolific creator and begin to appreciate again the qualities that had so endeared him to his contemporaries.

As the director of music for nearly fifty years at several churches and the opera house in the Free City of Hamburg rather than an employee of a princely court, Telemann was probably the first major musician to become deeply involved in making music more accessible to a broader middle-class public. He broke down the barriers between sacred and secular music, bringing his compositions out of the church in concert performances for a paying audience as well as organizing concerts of secular music throughout the city. 

After extensive improvements in the mid-17th century, the recorder graduated from being a humble consort instrument to become one of the most popular solo instruments of the high Baroque. It reigned for about three decades—from 1700 to 1730—before being displaced by the transverse flute. Telemann particularly favored the recorder and exploited its potential in a number of concertos as well as featuring it in his church cantatas and oratorios. However, he disliked excessive virtuosity for its own sake and preferred to show-off the instrument in a pleasing and charming manner.

The Telemann concerto work we hear this evening is an interesting hybrid of Italian solo concerto and French Baroque dance suite. (Always intrigued by French musical forms and styles, Telemann spent eight very profitable months in 1737–38 in Paris.) However, instead of the standard suite dances—the Allemande, Sarabande, and Gigue—we’ll encounter in the Corelli/Geminiani concerto, Telemann chose to fill his rather lengthy work with the more informal alternative dances known as Galanterien. He also included a lyrical song movement in a moderate tempo, the “Air à l’Italien,” corresponding to Bach’s “Air on a G String” in his Third Orchestral Suite. Two brief movements, “Les Plaisirs” and “Réjouissance,” are also not identified as dances, but their moods and titles—“Pleasures” and “Rejoicing” — continue the mood of light-hearted entertainment.

The Suite opens with a grand French Ouverture: a two-section movement that alternates between slow, stately music and a lively 6/8 dance introducing the recorder soloist. In contrast with Handel’s and Bach’s practices, this is not fugal music or even particularly elaborate contrapuntally; instead, Telemann the popularist focuses on an infectious melodic line.

An elegant Polonaise closes the work. Telemann developed a great affection for Polish folk music when he spent time early in his career (1705-06) in Poland working for Count von Promnitz. Polonaises and mazurkas find a place in many of his works.

According to his contemporaries, Giuseppe Sammartini was the greatest oboe player of his era, and his tone on the instrument possessed the eloquence of the human voice. Born in Milan in 1695, he was the son of the French oboist Alexis Saint-Martin (Sammartini is an Italianization of the family name) and the older brother of another highly regarded composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini.

After a successful career in Italy, where his virtuosity was compared to Vivaldi’s on the violin, Sammartini moved to London in 1728, like Handel and Geminiani before him. There he became music master of the household of the Prince of Wales. He also played in Handel’s orchestras, and Handel apparently wrote virtuoso obbligato parts in several arias specifically to show off Sammartini’s extraordinary abilities (his name is written into the manuscripts). 

Most of Sammartini’s compositions were published after his death in 1750, and they remained extremely popular in England far into the 19th century. As we’ll hear in this concerto, he was a marvelous melodist. And as a virtuoso player himself, he always favored the soloist, devising music that was perfectly idiomatic to the chosen instrument. His concertos were modeled after those of his contemporary Vivaldi and followed the Venetian’s formula of three movements—fast-slow-fast.

Stressing the soprano recorder’s pure sound and flexibility, the opening Allegro in F Major is courtly, blithe, and melodically appealing. It unfolds according to the ritornello plan familiar from Vivaldi’s concertos: an orchestral ritornello refrain is stated at the beginning and then recurs between the various episodes for the soloist. But in comparison to Vivaldi, Sammartini devotes far more time to the solo episodes than to the orchestra.

In his music, Sammartini particularly favored slow movements, and his second movement is the longest: a very lovely, rocking Siciliano in the minor mode. Here he shows off the recorder as a limpid, poignant melody-singer. Last comes a winsome charmer of a finale, made more intriguing by its minor-mode shadows.

No composer had a first name better suited to his music than Arcangelo Corelli, who indeed wrote string music of angelic beauty. Born in 1653 in the generation before Bach, Telemann, and Handel to a wealthy family living near Bologna, he was blessed with fame in his own lifetime, a fame that lasted long after his death as his works continued to be eagerly circulated throughout Europe. Handel, who worked with Corelli early in his career before coming to England, was deeply influenced by his music.

As well as composing, Corelli was an outstanding violin virtuoso and perhaps the greatest and most influential violin teacher of his era. And he lived at the perfect moment for creating music for strings—at the time that master instrument-makers like Stradivari, Guarneri, and Amati were bringing these instruments to full perfection. Serving as music master first for Queen Christina of Sweden and then for the fabulously wealthy arts patron Cardinal Pietro Ottobani, Corelli became the most admired and imitated musician of his day. During the first decade of the 18th century, his Monday evening concerts at Ottobani's palace were the highlight of Rome's music schedule. His solo sonatas, trio sonatas, and concerti grossi—all for string instruments with keyboard support—embodied the musical ideals of the middle Baroque period.

Born in Tuscany in 1687 just two years after Handel, Francesco Geminiani was a pupil of Corelli’s and himself became a superb violin virtuoso as well as an eminent teacher. In 1714, he emigrated from Italy to London and spent the rest of his very successful career primarily in England and occasionally in Ireland (he died in Dublin in 1762). The cult of Corelli was huge in England, sometimes exceeding the passion for Handel’s music. To meet the demand for more works by Corelli, Geminiani in 1726 published his brilliant arrangements for concerto grosso ensemble of the first six of Corelli’s remarkably forward-looking Opus 5 of 1700, which was originally conceived as twelve sonatas for violin and continuo; similar arrangements for concerto grosso of the remaining sonatas followed shortly thereafter. We will hear two of these Corelli/Geminiani hybrids.

The last of the Opus 5 concertos is “La Follia,” a theme-and-variations on a tune of that name which may have originated in Portugal in the 15th century and in early 17th century Spain became associated with frenzied singing and dancing. During the Baroque period, variations on “La Follia” were a mini-obsession as Alessandro Scarlatti and J.S. Bach, among many, created works based on it. And much later, Liszt used it in his Rhapsodie espagnole and Rachmaninoff for his Variations on a Theme of Corelli.

In Opus 5, Corelli created twenty-five scintillating variations on “La Follia” in a stunning variety of tempi and moods. And Geminiani’s arrangement for Baroque orchestra intensifies the sonic brilliance of this irresistible fantasy.

In the 18th century, the recorder in all its sizes remained more popular in England than on the continent and was enthusiastically played by professionals and amateurs alike. We hear Geminiani’s concerto grosso setting of Corelli’s Opus 5, No. 10 with a recorder part added; the recorder’s lavish ornaments were created by unknown English virtuosi. This piece follows the form of the Baroque dance suite with a grand and rather melancholy Preludio in a very slow tempo (Largo) followed by four contrasting dance movements. The first three dances are the standard suite dances: Allemanda (a lively dance in four beats), Sarabanda (a three-beat dance in a slow and solemn tempo), and Giga (an infectiously bouncing fast dance originating in England). The concerto closes with an alternative dance—the gracious French Gavotta in two beats. However, this gavotta is faster and more brilliant than is typical, a perpetual-motion display piece for the soloist, embellished with breathtakingly virtuosic ornamentation.