The sonatas of Corelli represent the highest point of perfection in this form. Born in 1653 at Fusignano near Bologna, Arcangelo Corelli played a capital part in the evolution of Italian music. From his teachers, Giovanni Benvenuti and Leonardo Brugnoli, he had acquired all the accomplished technique of the Venetians. His profound musical culture and the uncompromising purity of his taste made him fully aware of the dangers of virtuosity considered as an end in itself. He established a violin technique based on the imitation of the purest form of singing, a technique so rational and so well organised that it has been the basis of teaching in all schools of violin-playing ever since. Corelli was the founder of the first classical school of violin-playing, and thereby made possible the development of an instrumental art without which none of the great classical forms could ever have come into being. Few works have ever been the subject of such long and deep meditation, as those of Corelli. During a life of normal length (he died in 1713) he published in all only two books of 'Church trios' Op. I and 3 ( 1681 and 1689), two of 'chamber' trios Op. 2 and 4 ( 1685 and 1694), one of sonatas for violin and bass, the famous Op. 5 ( 1700) which ran into more than 30 editions in the course of the century, and one of concertos, Op. 6 ( 1714, posthumous). No music for the theatre and no vocal music of any kind.

Corelli's inspiration is of unfailing nobility and purity, while his sober and restrained style of writing combines in an effortless way traditional counterpoint with accompanied melody. The modern major-minor tonality holds undisputed sway in all his music. He was not its "inventor" as has been somewhat too lightly asserted, but he affirmed and established it more decisively than any of his predecessors by the way in which he modulates around an initial tonality.

None of his sonata-movements shows the opposition between two themes which was to be the essence of the classical sonata. One theme predominates in each piece, sometimes so completely as to provide the whole of the material, sometimes engendering, by imitation, accessory themes and sequences. The movements are sometimes enlivened, after the fashion of the divertissements in a fugue, by virtuoso passages of a deliberately sober character, far removed from the acrobatics indulged in by an Uccellini or, again, as found in the works of the old Austro-German School.

Corelli also played an important part in the development of the concerto grosso.