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The concerto grosso (Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 for big concert(o), plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
 concerti grossi) is a form of baroque music
Baroque music

Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from Dates of classical music eras. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance music and was followed by the Classical music era....
 in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the concertino
Concertino (group)

A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. This is opposed to the ripieno which is the larger group contrasting with the concertino....
) and full orchestra (the ripieno
Ripieno

Ripieno or tutti can refer to:*the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. This is opposed to the concertino which are the soloists....
).

The form developed in the late seventeenth century, although the name was not used at first. Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella

Alessandro Stradella was an Italy composer of the middle Baroque music. He was born in Rome, and was murdered in Genoa.Not much is known about his early life, but he was from an aristocratic family, educated at Bologna, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20, being commissioned by Queen Christina of Swede...
 seems to have written the first music in which two groups of different sizes are combined in the characteristic way.






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The concerto grosso (Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 for big concert(o), plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
 concerti grossi) is a form of baroque music
Baroque music

Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from Dates of classical music eras. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance music and was followed by the Classical music era....
 in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the concertino
Concertino (group)

A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. This is opposed to the ripieno which is the larger group contrasting with the concertino....
) and full orchestra (the ripieno
Ripieno

Ripieno or tutti can refer to:*the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. This is opposed to the concertino which are the soloists....
).

The form developed in the late seventeenth century, although the name was not used at first. Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella

Alessandro Stradella was an Italy composer of the middle Baroque music. He was born in Rome, and was murdered in Genoa.Not much is known about his early life, but he was from an aristocratic family, educated at Bologna, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20, being commissioned by Queen Christina of Swede...
 seems to have written the first music in which two groups of different sizes are combined in the characteristic way. The first major composer to use the term concerto grosso was Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music....
. After Corelli's death, a collection of twelve of his concerti grossi was published; not long after, composers such as Francesco Geminiani
Francesco Geminiani

Francesco Saverio Geminiani was an Italy violinist, composer, and music theory....
 and Giuseppe Torelli
Giuseppe Torelli

Giuseppe Torelli was an Italian violist, violinist, teacher, and composer, who ranks with Arcangelo Corelli among the developers of the Baroque music concerto and concerto grosso....
 wrote concertos in the style of Corelli. He also had a strong influence on Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed il Prete Rosso , was a Baroque music composer and Venice priest, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist, born and raised in the Republic of Venice....
.

Two distinct forms of the concerto grosso exist: the concerto da chiesa (church concert) and the concerto da camera (chamber concert). (See also Sonata
Sonata

Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the Music history, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical music era era....
 for a discussion about sonatas da camera and da chiesa.) The concerto da chiesa alternated slow and fast movements; the concerto da camera had the character of a suite
Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet, or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements ....
, being introduced by a prelude and incorporating popular dance forms. These distinctions blurred over time.

Corelli's concertino group was invariably two violins and a cello, with a string section
String section

The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bow string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses ....
 as ripieno group. Both were accompanied by a basso continuo with some combination of harpsichord, organ, lute or theorbo. Handel wrote several collections of concerti grossi, and several of the Brandenburg Concertos
Brandenburg concertos

The Brandenburg concerti by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 ....
 by Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organ whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque music period and brought it to its ultimate maturity....
 also loosely follow the concerto grosso form.

The concerto grosso form was superseded by the solo concerto
Solo concerto

A solo concerto is a concerto with only one soloist, accompanied by an orchestra. It is now the most frequent type of concerto, but originated in the Baroque Period as an alternative to the traditional concertino in a concerto grosso, to increase the contrast between the soloist and the orchestra....
 and the sinfonia concertante
Sinfonia concertante

Sinfonia concertante is a musical form that originated in the classical music era, and is a mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres:* It is a concerto, in that it has one or more Solo s ....
 in the late eighteenth century, and new examples of the form did not appear for more than a century. In the twentieth century, the concerto grosso has been used by composers such as Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Switzerland-born United States composer....
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams Order of Merit was an England composer of symphony, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film Film score. He was also a collector of England folk music and folk song; this also influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, which began in 1904, many folk song arrangements being set as hymn tunes,...
, Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinu

Bohuslav Martinu He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and taught music in his home town. In 1923 Martinu left Czechoslovakia for Paris, and deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained....
, Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Williamson

Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson Order of Australia , Order of the British Empire was an Australian composer and Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 to 2003....
, Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Garyevich Schnittke was a Russian and Soviet Union composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich....
, Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki is a Poland composer and conducting of European classical music....
 and Philip Glass
Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American music composer. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public ....
. While Edward Elgar may not be considered a modern composer, his romantic Introduction and Allegro
Introduction and Allegro (Elgar)

Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, opus 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar concert by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra....
 strongly resembled the instrumentation set up of a concerto grosso.

See also

  • Baroque
    Baroque

    In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
  • Concerto
    Concerto

    The term Concerto usually refers to a three-part musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra. The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque period side by side with the concerto grosso, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the orchestra....
  • Sinfonia concertante
    Sinfonia concertante

    Sinfonia concertante is a musical form that originated in the classical music era, and is a mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres:* It is a concerto, in that it has one or more Solo s ....
  • Tahmilah
    Tahmilah

    A ta?milah is a type of instrumental piece in Arabic music. Often played by a Takht ensemble, the tahmilah features the alternation between solo instruments and the full ensemble....