Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli, a key figure in the development of chamber music, was born in Fusignano, near Bologna, in 1653. Little can be said reliably about his early years, but in 1675 he was in Rome: his name appears that year on a list of musicians performing Masini’s oratorio, San Eustachio, at the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

Corelli is thought to have visited Germany around 1680. In later years, he would dedicate his Opus 5 to the Electress Sophie Charlotte of Brandenburg and his Opus 6 to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, which supports the hypothesis of a direct relationship between Corelli and those German courts.

Corelli spent most of his remaining years in Rome, passing away in 1713. He receives a respectful mention from the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in a treatise on music written decades later.

“Lully himself, alarmed at the arrival of Corelli, hastened to get him banished from France; which was by so much the more easy for him to do, as Corelli was by much the greater man, and of course the less of a courtier.”