Arcangelo Corelli
If you are familiar with the movie Master and Commander you might recall that the soundtrack is particularly spectacular. It is a mixture of original score work, with a wonderful mixture of pieces of classical music. I was familiar with most of the pieces, but the one that I found particularly haunting was a piece by a composer of whom I had never heard before: Arcangelo Corelli. The golden-locked gent you see here is he. OK, so "big hair" was popular in his day, among men. His work was foundational for later Baroque composers, including our own J.S. Bach, as well as Handel, Vivaldi and others.
The piece that I find so hauntingly beautiful is this part of his Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 8 in G Minor, "Fatto per la notte di na tale."
There are not many of his works extant, or even known. But I enjoy the ones that are. You might too.
Hey, you got a problem with blonde-haired Italians?
I gather I do now?
Listening to Corelli at the moment, thanks to my Pandora ‘station’ of Baroque chamber music.
He and Vivaldi have long been favorites of mine. You can hear Mozart precursors in the music of either composer.
Once upon a time, musicians and artists created in response to their own intellects, standards, and inspirations.
Nowadays, creativity and the creations themselves are subject to, and motivated by, the marketplace, and, though I’d like to blame the almighty dollar and the moguls who feed off the artistic world, and have made it simply a marketplace, I have to say artists themselves are doing precious little to rescue their output from being mere product.
So, the question is, if Corelli led inevitably to Mozart and Bach, what are today’s creators leading us to?
Alas, with music, it’s best to live in the past. It is very rich there.