The concerto grosso (Italian for big concert(o), plural concerti grossi) is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the concertino) and full orchestra (the ripieno). Look up plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. ... A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. ... Ripieno (Italian for stuffing) or tutti (Italian for everybody) is the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. ...

The form developed in the late seventeenth century, although the name was not used at first. Alessandro Stradella seems to have written the first music in which two groups of different sizes are combined in the characteristic way^{[citation needed]}. The first major composer to use the term concerto grosso was Arcangelo Corelli^{[citation needed]}. After Corelli's death, a collection of twelve of his concerti grossi was published; not long after, composers such as Francesco Geminiani and Giuseppe Torelli wrote concertos in the style of Corelli. He also had a strong influence on Antonio Vivaldi. Alessandro Stradella (April 3, 1639 - February 25, 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque. ... Arcangelo Corelli (February 17, 1653 – January 8, 1713) was an influential Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music. ... Francesco Geminiani (December 5, 1687 – September 17, 1762), Italian violinist, composer, and music theorist, was born at Lucca. ... Giuseppe Torelli Giuseppe Torelli (Verona, April 22, 1658 - Bologna, February 8, 1709) was an Italian violinist, pedagogue and composer. ... “Vivaldi” redirects here. ...

Two distinct forms of the concerto grosso exist: the concerto da chiesa (church concert) and the concerto da camera (chamber concert). (See also Sonata 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, being introduced by a prelude and incorporating popular dance forms. These distinctions blurred over time. Sonata (From Latin and Italian sonare, to sound), in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to cantata (Latin and Italian cantare, to sing), a piece sung. ... In music, a suite is an organized set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed at a single sitting, as a separate musical performance, not accompanying an opera, ballet, or theater-piece. ...

Corelli's concertino group was invariably two violins and a cello, with a string section 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 by Bach also loosely follow the concerto grosso form. The string section of an orchestra is the section containing bowed string instruments. ... Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervallic content (the intervals which make up a sonority), later chords, in relation to a bass note. ... George Frideric Handel (German Georg Friedrich Händel), (February 23, 1685 – April 14, 1759) was a German Baroque music composer who lived much of his life in Great Britain, a leading composer of concerti grossi, operas and oratorios. ... Johann Sebastian Bach, c. ... “Bach” redirects here. ...

The concerto grosso form was superseded by the solo concerto and the sinfonia concertante 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, Bohuslav Martinů, Alfred Schnittke, and Philip Glass. While Edward Elgar may not be considered a modern composer, his romantic Introduction and Allegro strongly resembled the instrumentation set up of a concerto grosso. The term Concerto (plural concertos or concerti) usually refers to a musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra. ... 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 soloists (in the classical music era usually more than one). ... Ernest Bloch with children This article is about the composer. ... Portrait of Martinů Bohuslav Martinů ( ; December 8, 1890—August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer. ... Alfred Schnittke April 6, 1989, Moscow Alfred Garyevich Schnittke (Russian: Альфре́д Га́рриевич Шни́тке, November 24, 1934 Engels - August 3, 1998 Hamburg) was a Russian and Soviet composer. ... Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is a three-times Academy Award-nominated American composer. ... Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, Bt OM GCVO (June 2, 1857 – February 23, 1934) was a British composer, born in the small Worcestershire village of Broadheath to William Elgar, a piano tuner and music dealer, and his wife Ann. ... Sir Edward Elgars Introduction and Allegro for Strings, opus 47, was composed in 1905 for performance in an all-Elgar performance by the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. ...

References

Bennett, R. (1995). Investigating Musical Styles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

See also

• Concerto
• Sinfonia concertante