Handel, Op. 6 No. 7

There were two models of Baroque Concertos: the Roman and the Northern Italian. The Roman school, typified by Corelli (1653-1713), treated this genre as an expanded trio sonata with the orchestra (the ripieno) acting as an extension of the core solo group (the concertino) which is why the orchestra is sometimes also called the concerto grosso – the greater concertino. (One might consider Bartók’s Divertimento along this line.)

The Northern Italian style centred on the Venetians, first with Albinoni (1671-1751) and then with Vivaldi (1678-1741), treated the ripieno as the core and the solo instrument as an offshoot of the main group. This style was picked up by J. S. Bach who further developed its defining feature – the ritornello form. Its structure of three movements going from fast to slow and back to fast soon became the norm of concertos.

Handel’s op. 6 (composed in 1739) sits curiously between the two models. Despite the English audience’s familiarity with the Roman School (partly due to the residency of Corelli’s pupil Geminiani) this set shows a similar kind of encyclopaedic tendency found in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in that some of the concertos are in the tradition of Corelli whilst others are in Vivaldi’s style. Op. 6 no. 7 in particular is an extreme of the Corelli tradition where the concertino and the ripieno plays the same material throughout. This concerto is also rather famous for its eccentric fugue subject that requires on each appearance three attempts to get started. Also of note is the ‘hornpipe’ movement at the end, which is a type of dance that was once popular with people of the British Isles.

December 2012