Concerto grosso in the context of "Solo concerto"

In music, a solo (Italian for 'alone') is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung featuring a single performer, who may be performing completely alone or supported by an accompanying instrument such as a piano or organ, a continuo group (in Baroque music), or the rest of a choir, orchestra, band, or other ensemble. Performing a solo is "to solo", and the performer is known as a soloist.

The plural is soli or the anglicised form solos. In some contexts these are interchangeable, but soli tends to be restricted to classical music, and mostly either the solo performers or the solo passages in a single piece. Furthermore, the word soli can be used to refer to a small number of simultaneous parts assigned to single players in an orchestral composition. In the Baroque concerto grosso, the term for such a group of soloists was concertino.

George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (/ˈhændəl/ HAN-dəl; baptised Georg Fried[e]rich Händel, German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈhɛndl̩] ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

Born in Halle, Handel spent his early life in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognised as one of the greatest composers of his age.

Arcangelo Corelli (/kəˈrɛli/, also UK: /kɒˈ-/, US: /kɔːˈ-, koʊˈ-/; Italian: [arˈkandʒelo koˈrɛlli]; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an Italian composer, musician, and violinist of the middle Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of the violin, and as the first coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony.

He was trained in Bologna and Rome and spent most of his career there with the protection of wealthy patrons. Though his entire production is limited to just six published collections – five of which are trio sonatas or solo and one of concerti grossi — he achieved great fame and success throughout Europe, in the process crystallizing widely influential musical models.

Baroque music (UK: /bəˈrɒk/ or US: /bəˈroʊk/) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and continues to be widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". Key composers of the Baroque era include Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first operas; Alessandro Stradella, who originated the concerto grosso style; and Arcangelo Corelli, who was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed across Europe.

The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments—viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers.

The stile concertato (Italian: [ˈstile kont͡ʃerˈtato], lit. 'concerted style') is a style of early Baroque music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody, usually in alternation, and almost always over a basso continuo. The word concertato is the past participle of the Italian verb concertare meaning ‘to agree, act together’, from the Latin verb concertare originally meaning “to contend or strive”.

A somewhat oversimplified, but useful distinction between stile concertato and concerto can be made: the stile concertato involves contrast between opposing groups of voices and groups of instruments: the concerto style, especially as it developed into the concerto grosso later in the Baroque, involves contrast between large and small groups of similar composition (later called "ripieno" and "concertino").

Baroque music (UK: /bəˈrɒk/ or US: /bəˈroʊk/) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and continues to be widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era include Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first operas; Alessandro Stradella, who originated the concerto grosso style; and Arcangelo Corelli, who was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed across Europe.

The Baroque period saw the formalization of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. Baroque composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part, leading to the creation of the modern orchestra; modernised musical notation, including developing figured bass; and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously.