Concerto grosso E-flat major "Il pianto d´Arianna"

The subtitle “Il pianto d’Arianna” points to Ariadne from classical tradition and, more specifically, to the long afterlife of the famous “Lamento d’Arianna”, associated above all with Monteverdi and with a wider lament tradition that followed. Locatelli translates that affect into a concertante narrative shaped by musical rhetoric, sighing figures, deliberate pauses, and an unusually vocal, almost theatrical treatment of the first solo violin.

A defining feature is the alternation of sharply contrasted sections. A sobbing Andante gives way to an energetic Allegro that does not fully resolve the tension, the music turns back toward darker expression and returns to earlier material, even transposed, producing a sense of emotional recurrence rather than linear progress.

As the work unfolds, tutti writing and concertino responses create a dialogue that moves between Corellian gravity and Vivaldian kinetic rhythm, and the final Largo sustains the lamenting tone to the end. Only the closing cadence returns to E flat major, brief and almost formally constrained, as if the music allows a final moment of light after extended introspection.

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