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Pieter Hellendaal was born in Rotterdam in the latter half of March 1721. His family settled in Utrecht and he became organist of the St. Nicholas Church in 1732 at the age of only ten years. Around 1740. Hellendaal was able tu study violin and compnsition in Padua under Tartini, and his first publications were printed in Amsterdam: six sonatas for violin with basso continuo, Op.1, and another set of six sonutas, also for violin and continuo, Op.2.
Hellendaal gave a concert in London on April 15, 1752. Reports indicate that he had presented several concerti grossi, which were not published until six years later as thc Op.3 set. He succeeded Dr. Charles Burney on June 12, 1760 as organist at St.Margaret's in King's Lynn, and around this time his Op.4 appeared in London: six sonatas for violin with basso continue. He kept his job in King's Lynn for a year, and for the remainder of his life he lived in Cambridge.
No English composer of the time achieved such high standards (apart from Handel) as did Hellendaal in the six concerti grossi, Op.3. The fugal movements captivate the attention just as the best of Handel's. The rôle of the second violin and viola is not merely that of a filling-in part as one encounters in lesser-known composers; it is fully integrated into the whole structure.
The first concerto grosso opens with a French overture: slowly at first in dotted rhythm, later fast and tn a fugal style. The following movement is a simple Largo which functions as a resting point. The Presto has soli for one, two, three and four string instruments; the closing minuet is played by the ripieno only; it is in two-part writing as the first and second violins play in unison and the violas in octaves with the bass.

Luc van Hasselt