The dialogue between soloist and orchestra
The idea of a dialogue between an isolated soloist and a supporting orchestra was not so far from the composers' minds at the end of the 17th century. After all, this had already been happening in opera for more than a century, when singers began to act as a solo instrument in charge of a melody, accompanied by a more or less dense orchestra. The human voice, of course, has always been the same, or at least it has never required technological advances for its development. The same is not true of instruments.
Technological improvements
During that century, the quality of the violin made by Italian craftsmen had been enjoying substantial improvements by the Lombard families Amati, Guarneri, or Stradivari. Thanks to this, the concertino group instrumentalists were able to add to the virtuosic exercises allowed by the concerto grosso a quality of sound unknown until then, which will demand special attention. The appearance of the solo instrument was just a step away. Technological improvement and the idea of dialogue between instrument and orchestra brought by the opera will go hand in hand so that the musical world of the West will know a new transformation of the expressive medium: the concerto for solo instrument and orchestra.
Torelli
Giusseppe Torelli (1658 - 1709)
It is the Veronese Giuseppe Torelli who has entered history as the creator of the new form or, at least, the first to use it more openly. Despite the discovery, little is known about his beginnings as a musician – as well as about his last years. Born in Verona, Italy, in 1658, he left the city in the early 1680s to take up the post of maestro di capella at the Cathedral of Imola in Bologna shortly afterward. He would later travel through Germany and also visit Vienna, returning to Bologna in 1701 where he would assume a position in the newly reconstituted musical chapel of San Petronio.
12 Concerti grossi with a pastoral
Torelli called his orchestral pieces symphonies, sometimes sonatas, but also concertos. His Concerti musicali opus 6, from 1698, shows passages for solo violin, not very abundant, certainly, nor very outstanding, but enough to distinguish a soloist in comparison with the concertino group of the concerto grosso.
The disintegration of the concertino group would come somewhat later with the posthumous publication of his 12 Concerti grossi with a pastorale Opus 8, from 1709, in which a violin –or two, as the music evolves- confronts the rest of the orchestra with passages where he can feel free to take the initiative. From here onwards, all that remains is to wait for the virtuoso performers to appear.
Concerto for two violins Op. 8 No. 5
From the Opus 8 series, the Concerto No. 5 for two violins in G major is presented here, in a performance by the Croatian Baroque Ensemble. For our current idea of a concerto, the work is very short. It lasts barely eight minutes and follows the fast-slow-fast scheme of only three movements that Alessandro Scarlatti had just consecrated for his Italian overtures: Allegro - Andante - Allegro.
