A song for the season

Corelli’s Christmas Concerto was so called as it bears the inscription ‘Fatto per la notte di Natale’ (‘made for the night of Christmas’). The portrait of Francesco Geminiani by Andrea Soldi, now in the Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Museum, was painted in about 1735, depicts the composer holding a copy of the Christmas Concerto, in tribute to…