EMYO Early Music Youth Orchestra Alberto Sanna Violino concertatore
01 September 2024/ Italy / Sassari
EMYO
EARLY MUSIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Italia-Germania 4-3
Alberto Sanna concert violonist
The 1970 FIFA World Cup semi-final played in Mexico City on June 17 by the national teams of Italy and Germany has been called the “match of the century,” more for its emotional content than for its technical-tactical content. Even aesthetic-musical judgments are often motivated by sentimental considerations rather than by formal or historical analysis. This is the case of two of the most famous series of orchestral concertos of all time: Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerti grossi, published posthumously in Amsterdam in 1714 as his sixth opus, and George Frideric Handel’s Grand concertos, published in London first in installments in 1739 and then also published as his sixth opus in 1741.
According to a teleological conception of the history of Western music that, although long repudiated by musicologists, is still quite common among performers, the German composer’s work would be the natural (“organic” as they used to say) culmination of the process of perfecting the genre of the orchestral concerto begun by the Italian composer over thirty years earlier.
Fortunately, History with a capital H eludes simplifications. Musical genres do not arise, flourish and die like plants but change according to environmental circumstances (political, economic, social, cultural). Thus, it is certainly no coincidence that Handel, with commercial acumen, called his concertos “grand” (i.e. large), gave the work the number six and organized the orchestra into a concertino and a concerto grosso as Corelli had done: after all, Corelli’s sixth opus had been the most popular collection of instrumental music ever in the British Isles. But it is equally true that the similarities end there. In fact, Corelli’s and Handel’s concertos respond to the needs of two socio-cultural contexts that are not at all similar: on the one hand, papal and cardinal Rome of the last decades of the seventeenth century and, on the other, aristocratic and mercantile London of the first half of the eighteenth century.
Tonight’s program explicitly avoids the labels “baroque” and “late baroque” – and the interpretive stereotypes that often derive from them – to focus on the structural and expressive differences between Corelli’s and Handel’s orchestral masterpieces. The
reproduction of performance techniques historically appropriate to the two distinct repertoires allows instrumentalists to realize the intentions of the two composers with greater awareness and coherence, and the audience to appreciate a wider range of musical concepts and affects. Because - to return to the football analogy from which we started - it is not only the result that counts, but also the spectacle.
Enjoy!
EARLY MUSIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Italia-Germania 4-3
Alberto Sanna concert violonist
The 1970 FIFA World Cup semi-final played in Mexico City on June 17 by the national teams of Italy and Germany has been called the “match of the century,” more for its emotional content than for its technical-tactical content. Even aesthetic-musical judgments are often motivated by sentimental considerations rather than by formal or historical analysis. This is the case of two of the most famous series of orchestral concertos of all time: Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerti grossi, published posthumously in Amsterdam in 1714 as his sixth opus, and George Frideric Handel’s Grand concertos, published in London first in installments in 1739 and then also published as his sixth opus in 1741.
According to a teleological conception of the history of Western music that, although long repudiated by musicologists, is still quite common among performers, the German composer’s work would be the natural (“organic” as they used to say) culmination of the process of perfecting the genre of the orchestral concerto begun by the Italian composer over thirty years earlier.
Fortunately, History with a capital H eludes simplifications. Musical genres do not arise, flourish and die like plants but change according to environmental circumstances (political, economic, social, cultural). Thus, it is certainly no coincidence that Handel, with commercial acumen, called his concertos “grand” (i.e. large), gave the work the number six and organized the orchestra into a concertino and a concerto grosso as Corelli had done: after all, Corelli’s sixth opus had been the most popular collection of instrumental music ever in the British Isles. But it is equally true that the similarities end there. In fact, Corelli’s and Handel’s concertos respond to the needs of two socio-cultural contexts that are not at all similar: on the one hand, papal and cardinal Rome of the last decades of the seventeenth century and, on the other, aristocratic and mercantile London of the first half of the eighteenth century.
Tonight’s program explicitly avoids the labels “baroque” and “late baroque” – and the interpretive stereotypes that often derive from them – to focus on the structural and expressive differences between Corelli’s and Handel’s orchestral masterpieces. The
reproduction of performance techniques historically appropriate to the two distinct repertoires allows instrumentalists to realize the intentions of the two composers with greater awareness and coherence, and the audience to appreciate a wider range of musical concepts and affects. Because - to return to the football analogy from which we started - it is not only the result that counts, but also the spectacle.
Enjoy!
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