LUNATICS AND OUTCASTS

Despite his significant musical output and his fame during his lifetime, Francesco Maria Veracini today is one of the least known 18th century violin virtuoso. 

In this program we dig down into the life and musical style of Veracini. Following along the path of his different sets of violin sonatas, we trace his musical style from the early Corelli influences through his stormy time in Dresden, to his later, more elaborate and technically challenging violin sonatas. 

Program:

Veracini: Sonata Op.1/5

Corelli: Sonata op. 5/3

Pisendel: Violin Sonata

Lonati: Violin Sonata No.5

Veracini Sonata op. 2/12

Kinga Ujszaszi - violin, Tom Foster - harpsichord, Jadran Duncumb - theorbo

He was a very influential musical figure and violin virtuoso at his time. After hearing him perform, Tartini has decided to retreat to the countryside to work on his right hand technique. 

His life spans from Florance and Venice to London via Dresden at a time, when the style and technique of violin playing was changing at a rapid pace. 

In his earliest set of sonatas we can strongly recognise the influence of the most famous violinist of the 17th century, Arcangelo Corelli. During his early years he met Corelli, some even suggest that he studied with him, though we don’t have direct evidence about this. He regarded Lonati ‘The Hunchback’ as a great violinist. Both Corelli’s and Lonati’s influence is noticeable on Veracini’s early writing.

During his service in the Dresden Court he worked side by side with Pisendel, who was the most celebrated violinist of the court until Veracini’s arrival. Pisendel has brought the level of violin playing to an unusually high level by the time of Veracini’s arrival to the court, his music requires a level of virtuosity which was achieved by only a few at the time. They clearly had a rivalry going on between them at court, but this atmosphere might have inspired the change of Veracini’s style by the time he composed his second set of violin sonatas. These are technically way more demanding and musically more complex than the earlier set. 

The tension between Pisendel and Veracini quickly escalated and eventually led to the incident where Veracini has famously leapt out of a window. After this he had a limp for the rest of his life and left the court to go to London where he worked together with Farinelli and Handel.

He was often referred to with the title of Capo Pazzo ‘The Lunatic’