It was commissioned by the 1953 Edinburgh Festival to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli, and given its first performance on 29 August 1953, in the Usher Hall, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tippett.
Integrating 17th century influences, especially those outside of the orchestral tradition, can be traced back to the composer's days at the Royal College of Music, and to the period immediately after when he took a position conducting amateur choirs in Oxted.
Meanwhile his interest in 18th century counterpoint, specifically the fugal process, which would figure prominently and climactically in the latter part of the Fantasia, was the result of his supplementary studies with R. O. Morris, also dating from that period.
[1] The Fantasia represents, stylistically and conceptually, Tippett’s most ambitious attempt to create a synthetic composition that anticipates the creative developments that eventually led to the formation of his notional archetype.
In January 1975 the Corelli Fantasia reached an audience of some 14 million television viewers when it was featured prominently in the film Akenfield, directed by Peter Hall.