Concerto grosso
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
The Concerto Grosso is a piece of music from the 18th century in which there is a small group of instruments and a large group of instruments. These two groups are contrasted with one another, sometimes playing together, sometimes playing by themselves or echoing one another. The small group is called “concertino” and the large group is called "tutti", “ripieno” or “concerto grosso”. “Concerto grosso” is Italian for “big concerto”. The plural is “concerti grossi”. Notice that the second “c” in “concerto” is pronounced like an English “ch”.
The man who made the concerto grosso very popular was an Italian composer called Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). The small group of soloists in his concerti grossi were usually two violins and one cello. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) also used that combination for his concerti grossi.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote a set of six concertos which are known as the Brandenburg Concertos. Each of the Brandenburg Concertos is for a different combination of instruments. Most of them are concerti grossi. The second one, for example, has a concertino group of four instruments: trumpet, violin, recorder and oboe.
After the Baroque period, composers stopped writing concerti grossi. They were only interested in the solo concerto. In the 20th century, a few composers such as Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Bela Bartok (1881-1945) wrote examples of music which are like concerti grossi.
- See also: concerto
