Editing Arcangelo Corelli (section)

=== The violinist ===
As already mentioned, Corelli learned the fundamentals of violin technique in Bologna, and as a disciple of the virtuosos Giovanni Benvenuti and Leonardo Brugnoli, he followed the lines set by Ercole Gaibara, considered the progenitor of the Bolognese school. He later taught many students and spawned his own school, but despite his fame in this field, surprisingly few inaccurate descriptions of his technique survive, generating considerable controversy among critics, a shortcoming that is compounded by the fact that he did not write any manual or treatise about the topic. At the time there were several violin schools in Italy, which proposed different playing methods and even ways in which the player should hold the violin. There is considerable iconography describing these differences, where violinists rest the instrument under the chin, on the shoulder or against the chest, at different angles. Naturally, these differences involved different left hand and bow techniques and, to some extent, defined the style and complexity of the music they could perform.<ref name="Riedo">Riedo, Christoph. "How Might Arcangelo Corelli Have Played the Violin?" In: ''Music in Art'', 2014 (39):103–118</ref>

During the 18th century he was considered a great virtuoso, but critics of the 20th century have sometimes doubted the ancient testimonies. Boyden, for example, stated that "Corelli cannot claim a prominent place in the history of violin technique"; [[Marc Pincherle|Pincherle]] considered him "inferior to his German and even Italian contemporaries in terms of pure technique", and McVeigh said that he was "certainly not one of the great virtuosos of his time". However, according to Riedo, such opinions are based on what can be deduced from the technical requirements contained in his compositions, but this method is not entirely faithful to reality, since the score only offers a vague idea of what could be a live performance, also observing that the style developed by Corelli was characterized more by sobriety and singability than by extravagance. Furthermore, his compositions, in their published version, are addressed above all to a heterogeneous audience and not only to specialists and virtuosos. At the same time, his works cannot be exemplary of his ability to interpret works by other authors, where he may have taken a different approach. The failures of the Naples recital and the confrontation with Handel in Rome, where he supposedly claimed to have no experience in French technique, are often cited as evidence supporting his limited violin technique, although they are not firmly demonstrated.<ref name="Riedo"/>
[[File:Arcangelo Corelli, by Hugh Howard OXM310282.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Arcangelo Corelli by the Irish painter [[Hugh Howard (painter)|Hugh Howard]]]]
According to Riedo's research, which summarizes studies on this aspect, Corelli probably held the violin against his chest and projected it forward; this possibility is supported by engravings and drawings, as well as written sources, including descriptions of the performances of other violinists who had been his students or were influenced by him. This position was very common before his time, was dominant in the Rome of his time and remained common until the 19th century. [[Francesco Geminiani]], who was probably his student, in his ''The Art of Playing the Violin'' (1751) wrote that "the violin should be held just below the clavicle, inclining the right side slightly downward, so so it is not necessary to bend too much when playing the fourth string." Walls claimed that almost no virtuoso of the first half of the 18th century took a different stance. It provided the performer with an elegant attitude, in Corelli's case also important for being a patrician, but it slightly impaired the execution of the highest notes of the fourth string. Corelli's music rarely requires positions higher than the third.<ref name="Riedo"/>

Geminiani, who was also a virtuoso, gave voice to a very current vision of what is expected from a good violinist: "The intention of music is not only to please the ear, but to express feelings, touch the imagination, influence the mind, and dominate the passions. The art of playing the violin consists in giving the instrument a sound that rivals the most perfect human voice, and in executing each piece with accuracy, decorum, delicacy and expression according to the true intention of the music." In Riedo's words, "Geminiani's ideological and aesthetic views seem to correspond exactly to Corelli's compositions: he enhanced the textures, without acrobatic passages with extreme changes of position and without virtuoso effects. The positions of Boyden, Pincherle and McVeigh must be reconsidered, since this type of acrobatic virtuosity does not seem to have been Corelli's goal." Contemporary descriptions report that his performances were "erudite, elegant and pathetic, and his sound firm and uniform." Bremner wrote in 1777: "I was informed that Corelli would not accept into his orchestra any violinist who could not, with a bow, create a uniform and powerful sound, like that of an organ, by playing two strings at the same time, and maintain it for at least minus ten seconds." This suggests that his main concern was the mastery of bow technique, responsible for the overall sound produced and for the nuances and subtleties of dynamics and phrasing, which also coincides with claims of the time about Corelli's ability to express in the violin the most diverse emotions in their fullness, making his instrument "speak" as if it were a human voice.<ref name="Riedo"/><ref name="Scholars"/>

Among the advances that he promoted in the technique are the more intense exploration of double strings (including figurations in a pedal note), the G string (little used until then), harmonics, arpeggios, and [[tremolo (music)|tremolo]], of [[rubato]], of [[staccato]], of [[scordatura]], of fast figurations in thirds, of chords of more than two notes and was the main proponent of the [[bariolage]] technique.<ref name="Wilk">Wilk, Piotr. "The violin technique of Italian solo sonata in the 17th century". In: Musica Iagellonica, 2011: 166–207</ref><ref name="Kostka">Kostka, Magdalena. Sonatas for violin and basso continuo written by British composers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Tese de Doutorado. Cardiff University, 2014, p. 21</ref> Although Corelli did not write anything about it, the treatises published by Geminiani, Francesco Galeazzi and others influenced by him probably faithfully reflect the master's principles.<ref name="Galeazzi">Galeazzi, Francesco [Burton, Deborah & Harwood, Gregory W. (eds,)]. ''Theoretical-practical Elements of Music, Parts III and IV''. University of Illinois Press, 2012, pp. 4–5</ref><ref name="Treccani"/> His performances in various fields related to the violin – virtuoso, teacher and composer – have left an indelible mark on the history of this instrument and have laid the foundations of its modern technique.<ref name="Cengage Learning"/><ref name="McGegan">McGegan, Nicholas (dir.). ''Corelli, Arcangelo (1653–1713)''. Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale</ref><ref name="Hann">Hann, Hanna C. [Ehle, Robert. (or.)]. "The Influence of Historic Violin Treatises on Modern Teaching and Performance Practices" 2016, no Wayback Machine. In: ''University of Northern Colorado Undergraduate Research Journal'', 2015; 4 (3)</ref>

It is known that he had many students, among them: Matteo Fornari, [[Giovanni Battista Somis]],<ref name="McVeigh">McVeigh, Simon & Hirshberg, Jehoash. The Italian Solo Concerto, 1700–1760: Rhetorical Strategies and Style History. Boydell Press, 2004, p. 40</ref> [[Pietro Castrucci]],<ref name="Springer"/> [[Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli]],<ref name="Kostka"/> [[Francesco Gasparini]], [[Jean-Baptiste Anet]],<ref name="Indiana University"/> [[Georg Muffat]]<ref name="Sadie">Sadie, Julie Anne. "Paris and Versailles". In: Buelow, George J. (ed.). ''The Late Baroque Era: Vol 4. From The 1680s To 1740. Springer, 2016, p. 139''</ref> and [[Francesco Geminiani]].<ref name="McVeigh"/>