Arcangelo Corelli, the real representative of classical Italian violin music, was a significant violin virtuoso, who, avoiding outer dazzling bravado, practised a simple and expressive style. He is at the end of a series of Italian composers of solo and trio sonatas, a series which
can be traced through the whole of the 17th century. The striving, so typical of that period, for the perfect, which is solely based on beauty and harmony, has found its purest expression in his works. The master is of special importance as the creator of the „Concerto grosso“.
The present sonata is No. 8 from Arcangelo Corelli’s Sonate a violino e violone o cimbalo, Op. 5, a collection of twelve sonatas first published in Rome in 1700 and dedicated to Sophie Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg. To better suit the range and characteristics of the recorder, the sonata has been transposed from its original key of E minor, with only a few octave displacements being necessary.
