This article provides an example of an aesthetically oriented analysis of a Corelli composition as much as it presents a flexible view of the compositional process in the late seventeenth century informed by contemporary notions of harmony, counterpoint, craftsmanship and artistry.
By shifting the emphasis from the analytical agenda of twentieth-century theorists to the grammatical standards set by their late seventeenth-century counterparts, the article makes a case for the richness of Corelli’s musical eloquence over the historiographical tradition that locates the establishment of a ‘Common-Practice’ of musical composition in Italy in the early decades of the eighteenth century.