Thursday, January 28, 2016

Corelli: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6: Concerto No. 7 in D major

Over the last week, I've been listening to The Argo Years by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields.  To-day I got to the last disc, which contains selections from various composers' concerti grossi, and I noticed something about Corelli's (Concerto No. 7 in D major from 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6).

A few days ago, I wrote about a diatonically-descending line that skips octaves after every pair of notes in his Concerto No. 12 from the same work.  It's also in Concerto No. 7, specifically in the third movement:

(notation found here)

As in Concerto No. 12, it's primarily in the cello part, but pairs of adjacent notes are also in the other instrumental parts (although the viola is ascending rather than descending).

Finding this feature again furthers the confusion that I talked about last time, but - if nothing else - I found a similarity between two concerti in this Corelli work.