A brief outline of Andrea Falconieri's life gives a good idea of a typical lifestyle of a 17th century composer/performer. It is remarkable when reading about the lives of musicians of the baroque, that so many of them travelled so extensively at a time when travel was so difficult, expensive and dangerous:

Falconieri was brought up from an early age by the duke of Parma where he was employed as a lutenist 1604 to 1610. After banking his salary for November 1614, he absconded, possibly to Mantua where he appears to have been a temporary musician at court. The dedication of some songs to Cardinal de' Medici suggests that he was for a time employed at Florence, and this may have led to an appointment in Rome.

About 1620-21 he married and moved to Modena as a player of the chitarrone and chitarriglia alla spagnola (baroque guitar). A year later he departed for Spain, leaving behind his wife, one song and some copies of his (lost) book on the Spanish guitar. He was later ordered to proceed to France and seems to have travelled there and in Spain for some years. In October 1628, however, he took part in the festivities at Florence for the wedding of Princess Margherita de' Medici and Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, and on 20 April 1629 he returned to Parma as a chitarrone player. From 1632, he was a music teacher at the convent of S Brigida, Genoa but in June 1636 was denounced by the mother superior for distracting the nuns with his music. He was appointed lutenist in the royal chapel at Naples in 1639. In 1642 he obtained leave to visit his wife in Modena and appears also to have visited Genoa. In 1647, he was appointed maestro di cappella at Naples and held the post until his death of the plague.

This Battalia was published in Naples in 1650, and is a brilliant demonstration of the baroque fascination with battle music. The music abounds with trumpet-like fanfares, many of which are probably exact imitations of those actually used in battles of the day. The complicated set of calls and signals that trumpeters had to learn before going into battle enabled the army to communicate on the field, and so were regarded with the utmost importance.

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The folia was a musical framework used during the Baroque period for songs, dances and sets of variations. It probably originated as a folk dance in late 15th-century Portugal.

In 1611 Sebastiàn de Covarrubias (Tesoro de la lengua castellana) described the folia as a Portuguese dance, very noisy, performed with tambourines and other instruments by disguised street-porters carrying young men in women's clothing on their shoulder. He also explained that the name, which means 'mad' or 'empty-headed', was appropriate because the dance was so fast and noisy that the dancers seemed out of their minds. These performances were usually accompanied by guitar, sonajas and pandero (types of tambourine).

The musical design of the early 17th-century folia consists of an upper melodic framework, (although the precise melody varies) and a lower staff giving a simple type of guitar accompaniment. The opening two beats of anacrusis are sometimes omitted, but in any case the first accent always falls on the V chord. The stroke pattern continually emphasizes 3/4 metre, whereas both the melody and the harmonic changes often oscillate between 3/2 and 6/4.

In the course of the 1670s the folia underwent some decisive transformations: It became a slow and dignified dance, and was likened to the sarabande. All second beats were dotted, thus throwing a powerful secondary accent on the opening chord.

This folia by Falconieri is a spirited example of the early type of fast, 'mad' folia, with twenty variations for two violins on the eight-bar bass theme.

The incredible significance of Corelli's Op V publication was evident even to his contemporaries, and this beautiful set of violin sonatas is still standard repertoire for violinists today. The third sonata from this volume featured in the first concert in the Baroque Discovery series: 'Sublime Inspiration', and proved (predictably!) one of the audience favorites.

Apart from the innovative nature of the compositional style, which took Europe by storm, an often overlooked significant fact about this publication was that it was one of the first to be printed with the new technology. Copper engraving started being used around this time to produce far more legible (and beautiful) scores. These could also be reproduced quicker and more economically, thereby hastening the spread of new music. This new method was far better than the old-fashioned stamp method, as can be seen by the examples below:

Corelli's Opus 3 trio sonata No.1 published in Rome, 1689:

Corelli's Opus 5 Follia, published in Rome in 1700:

This beautiful set of Follia variations by Corelli for violin and basso continuo, is perhaps the most famous example of the 'new' style of folia. It starts with a dark, serious, very Spanish- sounding theme, then continues with many varied and imaginative variations. Rather than 'mad', the mood of this type of Folia could be described as basically proud and serious, though with many different ways of showing it.

The chaconne is another of those dances that seems to have originated in Spanish popular culture during the last years of the 16th century, most likely in the New World. It was a dance-song associated with servants, slaves and Amerindians and was often condemned for its suggestive movements and mocking texts and was said to have been invented by the devil.

During the early 1600s the chaconne rapidly became established as Spain's most popular dance, overshadowing its older (but equally 'immoral') rival, the zarabanda, with which it was often associated.

Both in Spain and in Italy, especially in Naples, chaconnes were often incorporated into theatrical presentations and commedia dell'arte routines, which sometimes resulted in their being banned from the stage. The association with commedia dell'arte characters, particularly Harlequin, became long-lasting and widespread throughout Europe.

The characteristic chaconne formulae commence with I-V-VI, and then return to V, either directly or by way of intermediary harmonies such as IV-V or I6-IV-V. By the end of the 17th century, composers were introducing shifts in key and tempo, and composing slower, more stately chaconnes.

With this piece - a wonderfull example of the later style of chaconne - Corelli incorporates ingenious contrapuntal development of its bass formula: it starts with the usual descending figure (G-F#-E-D), but this figure is very cleverly and sublely inverted so that is beomes an ascending figure (G-A-B-C-D) consisting of 5 notes!

Angelo Michele Bartolotti claimed his place in the musical history books with the publication of a fine collection of guitar solos in Florence in 1640. He is next heard of at Christina's Swedish court in 1652-3, as theorbo player in the small troupe of Italian musicians to which Christina was devoted. All were dismissed following her abdication in 1654, whereupon Bartolotti followed her south, finding a temporary patron in her erstwhile host on her travels, Archduke Ferdinand Karl in Innsbruck.Like Christina, Bartolotti then travelled to Rome, where, in c.1655 he published his second book of guitar solos from which the present Ciaccona comes, dedicated to Christina and bearing her family coat of arms.

The book contains some of the most spectacular guitar music of the century, combining intricate lute-derived textures with characteristic guitar strumming techniques, all flavoured with Bartolotti's uniquely pungent harmonies.

If this splendid collection was an effort to regain Christina's patronage, it failed, for Bartolotti then travelled to the French court where he was to spend the rest of his life, feted as one of the leading theorbo players in France.

This sonata is from the first of the two collections of Corelli's sonate da chiesa (church sonatas). Originally intended for performance in church services, these sonatas are written in a more serious, contrapuntal style than the sonatae da camera which comprises movements based on the music of popular dances of the period.

This Op1 set was dedicated to one of Corelli's first musical patrons - Christina Queen of Sweden. Below is the original title page of the 1681 edition:

These sonatas were almost certainly played by Corelli himself not only in church, but for the delight of the Queen at her regular musical soirées in Rome.

The tarantella is an ancient folk dance from Suthern Italy that was played to a victim of the tarantula spider's bite in order to exorcise the venom.

It was commonly believed that the character of the spider would dictate the form the malady would take. Therefore, if someone was biten by a melancholy Tarantula, they would become leghargic, indolent and sleepy, but if they were bitten by a Choleric variety, the symptoms would be restlessness, fury and violence.

The performers would therefore have to adapt the style of the Tarantella to suit the symptoms, and this would in turn scare away the spider that had inflicted the bite and may be still lurking.

For this reason, tarantella's should always be improvised to be as appropriate as possible to the situation. Depending on how things are going, our version could be melancholy or spirited. We're hoping for the later!