{"id":290,"date":"2015-06-02T17:50:38","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T17:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/musicx15xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=290"},"modified":"2015-07-14T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T16:12:49","slug":"antonio-vivaldi","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/odessa-musicapp-medievaltomodern\/chapter\/antonio-vivaldi\/","title":{"raw":"Antonio Vivaldi","rendered":"Antonio Vivaldi"},"content":{"raw":"Antonio Vivaldi was certainly a major composer of the late Baroque, but his enduring legacy is generally concentrated in a single genre: the concerto. Vivaldi was a prolific composer and producer of opera and was very successful in his day, but his operatic compositions are not nearly as widely performed today as his concertos.\r\n

Introduction<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_311\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"250\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure 1. Antonio Vivaldi (engraving by Fran\u00e7ois Morellon de La Cave (fr), from Michel-Charles Le C\u00e8ne's edition of Vivaldi's Op. 8)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAntonio Lucio Vivaldi<\/b> (4 March 1678\u201328 July 1741) was an Italian Baroque\u00a0composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He is known mainly for composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons<\/i>.\r\n\r\nMany of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0<\/i>, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantuaand Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for preferment. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a year later in poverty.\r\n

Life<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

At the Conservatorio dell'Ospedale della Piet\u00e0<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\r\nIn September 1703, Vivaldi became maestro di violino<\/i> (master of violin) at an orphanage called the Pio Ospedale della Piet\u00e0 (Devout Hospital of Mercy) in Venice.\u00a0While Vivaldi is most famous as a composer, he was regarded as an exceptional technical violinist as well. The German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach referred to Vivaldi as \"the famous composer and violinist\" and said that \"Vivaldi played a solo accompaniment excellently, and at the conclusion he added a free fantasy [an improvised cadenza] which absolutely astounded me, for it is hardly possible that anyone has ever played, or ever will play, in such a fashion.\"\r\n\r\nVivaldi was only 25 when he started working at the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0. Over the next thirty years he composed most of his major works while working there.\u00a0There were four similar institutions in Venice; their purpose was to give shelter and education to children who were abandoned or orphaned, or whose families could not support them. They were financed by funds provided by the Republic.\u00a0The boys learned a trade and had to leave when they reached 15. The girls received a musical education, and the most talented stayed and became members of the Ospedale's renowned orchestra and choir.\r\n\r\nShortly after Vivaldi's appointment, the orphans began to gain appreciation and esteem abroad, too. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas and sacred vocal music for them.\u00a0These sacred works, which number over 60, are varied: they included solo motets and large-scale choral works for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra.\u00a0In 1704, the position of teacher of\u00a0viola all'inglese<\/i> was added to his duties as violin instructor.\u00a0The position of maestro di coro<\/i>, which was at one time filled by Vivaldi, required a lot of time and work. He had to compose an oratorio or concerto at every feast and teach the orphans both music theory and how to play certain instruments.\r\n\r\nHis relationship with the board of directors of the Ospedale was often strained. The board had to take a vote every year on whether to keep a teacher. The vote on Vivaldi was seldom unanimous, and went 7 to 6 against him in 1709.\u00a0After a year as a freelance musician, he was recalled by the Ospedale with a unanimous vote in 1711; clearly during his year's absence the board realized the importance of his role.\u00a0He became responsible for all of the musical activity of the institution\u00a0when he was promoted to maestro de' concerti<\/i> (music director) in 1716.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_312\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"764\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure 2. Commemorative plaque beside the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn 1705, the first collection (Connor Cassara<\/i>) of his works was published by Giuseppe Sala:\u00a0his Opus 1 is a collection of 12 sonatas for two violins and basso continuo, in a conventional style.\u00a0In 1709, a second collection of 12 sonatas for violin and basso continuo appeared, his Opus 2.\u00a0A real breakthrough as a composer came with his first collection of 12 concerti for one, two, and four violins with strings, L'estro armonico<\/i> Opus 3, which was published in Amsterdam in 1711 by Estienne Roger,\u00a0dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. The prince sponsored many musicians including Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel. He was a musician himself, and Vivaldi probably met him in Venice.\u00a0L'estro armonico<\/i> was a resounding success all over Europe. It was followed in 1714 by La stravaganza<\/i> Opus 4, a collection of concerti for solo violin and strings,\u00a0dedicated to an old violin student of Vivaldi's, the Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin.\r\n\r\nIn February 1711, Vivaldi and his father traveled to Brescia, where his setting of the Stabat Mater (RV 621) was played as part of a religious festival. The work seems to have been written in haste: the string parts are simple, the music of the first three movements is repeated in the next three, and not all the text is set. Nevertheless, perhaps in part because of the forced essentiality of the music, the work is one of his early masterpieces.\r\n\r\nDespite his frequent travels from 1718, the Piet\u00e0 paid him 2 sequins to write two concerti a month for the orchestra and to rehearse with them at least five times when in Venice. The Piet\u00e0's records show that he was paid for 140 concerti between 1723 and 1733.\r\n

Opera Impresario<\/span><\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_313\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"250\"]\"Figure Figure 3. First edition of Juditha triumphans[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn early 18th-century Venice, opera was the most popular musical entertainment. It proved most profitable for Vivaldi. There were several theaters competing for the public's attention. Vivaldi started his career as an opera composer as a sideline: his first opera, Ottone in villa<\/i> (RV 729) was performed not in Venice, but at the Garzerie Theater in Vicenza in 1713.\u00a0The following year, Vivaldi became the impresario of the Teatro San Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo<\/i> (RV 727) was performed. The work was not to the public's taste, and it closed after a couple of weeks, being replaced with a repeat of a different work already given the previous year.\r\n\r\nIn 1715, he presented Nerone fatto Cesare<\/i> (RV 724, now lost), with music by seven different composers, of which he was the leader. The opera contained eleven arias, and was a success. In the late season, Vivaldi planned to put on an opera composed entirely by him, Arsilda, regina di Ponto<\/i> (RV 700), but the state censor blocked the performance. The main character, Arsilda, falls in love with another woman, Lisea, who is pretending to be a man.\u00a0Vivaldi got the censor to accept the opera the following year, and it was a resounding success.\r\n\r\nAt this period, the Piet\u00e0<\/i> commissioned several liturgical works. The most important were two oratorios. Moyses Deus Pharaonis<\/i>, (RV 643) is lost. The second, Juditha triumphans<\/i> (RV 644), celebrates the victory of the Republic of Venice against the Turks and the recapture of the island of Corfu. Composed in 1716, it is one of his sacred masterpieces. All eleven singing parts were performed by girls of the Piet\u00e0, both the female and male roles. Many of the arias include parts for solo instruments\u2014recorders, oboes, violas d'amore, and mandolins\u2014that showcased the range of talents of the girls.\r\n\r\nAlso in 1716, Vivaldi wrote and produced two more operas, L'incoronazione di Dario<\/i> (RV 719) and La costanza trionfante degli amori e degli odi\u00a0<\/i>(RV 706). The latter was so popular that it performed two years later, re-edited and retitled Artabano re dei Parti<\/i> (RV 701, now lost). It was also performed in Prague in 1732. In the following years, Vivaldi wrote several operas that were performed all over Italy.\r\n\r\nHis progressive operatic style caused him some trouble with more conservative musicians, like Benedetto Marcello, a magistrate and amateur musician who wrote a pamphlet denouncing him and his operas. The pamphlet, Il teatro alla moda<\/i>, attacks Vivaldi without mentioning him directly. The cover drawing shows a boat (the Sant'Angelo), on the left end of which stands a little angel wearing a priest's hat and playing the violin. The Marcello family claimed ownership of the Teatro Sant'Angelo, and a long legal battle had been fought with the management for its restitution, without success. The obscure writing under the picture mentions non-existent places and names: ALDIVIVA<\/i> is an anagram of A. Vivaldi<\/i>.\r\n\r\nIn a letter written by Vivaldi to his patron Marchese Bentivoglio in 1737, he makes reference to his \"94 operas.\" Only around 50 operas by Vivaldi have been discovered, and no other documentation of the remaining operas exists. Although Vivaldi may have exaggerated, in his dual role of composer and impresario<\/i> it is plausible that he may either have written or been responsible for the production of as many as 94 operas during a career which by then had spanned almost 25 years.\u00a0While Vivaldi certainly composed many operas in his time, he never reached the prominence of other great composers like Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolph Hasse, Leonardo Leo, and Baldassare Galuppi, as evidenced by his inability to keep a production running for any extended period of time in any major opera house.\r\n\r\nHis most successful operas were La costanza trionfante<\/i> and Farnace<\/i> which garnered six revivals each.\r\n

Mantua and the Four Seasons<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\r\nIn 1717 or 1718, Vivaldi was offered a new prestigious position as Maestro di Cappella<\/i> of the court of prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua.[33]<\/sup> He moved there for three years and produced several operas, among which was Tito Manlio<\/i> (RV 738). In 1721, he was in Milan, where he presented the pastoral drama La Silvia<\/i> (RV 734, 9 arias survive). He visited Milan again the following year with the oratorio L'adorazione delli tre re magi al bambino Ges\u00f9<\/i> (RV 645, also lost). In 1722 he moved to Rome, where he introduced his operas' new style. The new pope Benedict XIII invited Vivaldi to play for him. In 1725, Vivaldi returned to Venice, where he produced four operas in the same year.\r\n\r\nDuring this period Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons<\/i>, four violin concertos depicting scenes appropriate for each season. Three of the concerti are of original conception, while the first, \"Spring,\" borrows motifs from a Sinfonia in the first act of his contemporaneous opera \"Il Giustino.<\/i>\" The inspiration for the concertos was probably the countryside around Mantua. They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, ice-skating children, and warming winter fires. Each concerto is associated with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi, describing the scenes depicted in the music. They were published as the first four concertos in a collection of twelve,\u00a0Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione<\/i>, Opus 8, published in Amsterdam by Michel-Charles Le C\u00e8ne in 1725.\r\n\r\nDuring his time in Mantua, Vivaldi became acquainted with an aspiring young singer Anna Tessieri Gir\u00f2 who was to become his student, prot\u00e9g\u00e9e, and favorite prima donna.\u00a0Anna, along with her older half-sister Paolina, became part of Vivaldi's entourage and regularly accompanied him on his many travels. There was speculation about the nature of Vivaldi's and Giro's relationship, but no evidence to indicate anything beyond friendship and professional collaboration. Although Vivaldi's relationship with Anna Gir\u00f2 was questioned, he adamantly denied any romantic relationship in a letter to his patron Bentivoglio dated 16 November 1737.\r\n

Later Life and Death<\/span><\/h3>\r\nAt the height of his career, Vivaldi received commissions from European nobility and royalty. The serenata<\/i> (cantata) Gloria e Imeneo<\/i> (RV 687) was commissioned in 1725 by the French ambassador to Venice in celebration of the marriage of Louis XV. The following year, another serenata<\/i>,\u00a0La Sena festeggiante<\/i> (RV 694), was written for and premiered at the French embassy as well, celebrating the birth of the French royal princesses,\u00a0Henriette and Louise \u00c9lisabeth. Vivaldi's Opus 9, La Cetra<\/i>, was dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. In 1728, Vivaldi met the emperor while the emperor was visiting Trieste to oversee the construction of a new port. Charles admired the music of the Red Priest so much that he is said to have spoken more with the composer during their one meeting than he spoke to his ministers in over two years. He gave Vivaldi the title of knight, a gold medal and an invitation to Vienna. Vivaldi gave Charles a manuscript copy of La Cetra<\/i>, a set of concerti almost completely different from the set of the same title published as Opus 9. The printing was probably delayed, forcing Vivaldi to gather an improvised collection for the emperor.\r\n\r\nAccompanied by his father, Vivaldi traveled to Vienna and Prague in 1730, where his opera Farnace\u00a0<\/i>(RV 711) was presented.\u00a0Some of his later operas were created in collaboration with two of Italy's major writers of the time. L'Olimpiade<\/i> and Catone in Utica<\/i> were written by Pietro Metastasio, the major representative of the Arcadian movement and court poet in Vienna. La Griselda<\/i> was rewritten by the young Carlo Goldoni from an earlier libretto by Apostolo Zeno.\r\n\r\nLike many composers of the time, the final years of Vivaldi's life found him in financial difficulties. His compositions were no longer held in such high esteem as they once were in Venice; changing musical tastes quickly made them outmoded. In response, Vivaldi chose to sell off sizeable numbers of his manuscripts at paltry prices to finance his migration to Vienna.\u00a0The reasons for Vivaldi's departure from Venice are unclear, but it seems likely that, after the success of his meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he wished to take up the position of a composer in the imperial court. On his way to Vienna, Vivaldi may have stopped in Graz to see Anna Gir\u00f2.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_314\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"250\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure 4. Caricature by P. L. Ghezzi, Rome (1723)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIt is also likely that Vivaldi went to Vienna to stage operas, especially as he took up residence near the K\u00e4rntnertortheater. Shortly after his arrival in Vienna, Charles VI died, which left the composer without any royal protection or a steady source of income. Soon afterwards, Vivaldi became impoverished\u00a0and died during the night of 27\/28 July 1741, aged 63,\u00a0of \"internal infection,\" in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker. On 28 July he was buried in a simple grave in a burial ground that was owned by the public hospital fund. Vivaldi's funeral took place at St. Stephen's Cathedral, but the young Joseph Haydn had nothing to do with this burial, since no music was performed on that occasion.\u00a0The cost of his funeral with a 'Kleingel\u00e4ut' was 19 Gulden 45 Kreuzer which was rather expensive for the lowest class of peal of bells.\r\n\r\nHe was buried next to Karlskirche, in an area which is now part of the site of the Technical Institute. The house where he lived in Vienna has since been destroyed; the Hotel Sacher is built on part of the site. Memorial plaques have been placed at both locations, as well as a Vivaldi \"star\" in the Viennese Musikmeile and a monument at the Rooseveltplatz.\r\n\r\nOnly three portraits of Vivaldi are known to survive: an engraving, an ink sketch and an oil painting. The ink sketch, a caricature (as seen in figure 4), was done by Ghezzi in 1723 and shows Vivaldi's head and shoulders in profile.\r\n

Style and Influence<\/span><\/h2>\r\n
\r\n

Listen: \"La primavera\" (Spring) \u2013 Movement 1: Allegro from The Four Seasons<\/h3>\r\nPlease listen to a 2000 live performance by Wichita State University Chamber Players.\r\n\r\n[audio ogg=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/3\/3c\/01_-_Vivaldi_Spring_mvt_1_Allegro_-_John_Harrison_violin.ogg\"][\/audio]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nVivaldi's music was innovative. He brightened the formal and rhythmic structure of the concerto, in which he looked for harmonic contrasts and innovative melodies and themes; many of his compositions are flamboyantly, almost playfully, exuberant.\r\n\r\nJohann Sebastian Bach was deeply influenced by Vivaldi's concertos and arias (recalled in his St John Passion<\/i>, St Matthew Passion<\/i>, and cantatas). Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi's concerti for solo keyboard, three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065) based upon the concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).\r\n

Posthumous Reputation<\/span><\/h2>\r\nDuring his lifetime, Vivaldi's popularity quickly made him famous in other countries, including France, but after his death the composer's popularity dwindled. After the Baroque period, Vivaldi's published concerti became relatively unknown and were largely ignored. Even Vivaldi's most famous work, The Four Seasons<\/i>, was unknown in its original edition during the Classical and Romantic periods.\r\n\r\nDuring the early twentieth\u00a0century, Fritz Kreisler's Concerto in C, in the Style of Vivaldi (which he passed off as an original Vivaldi work) helped revive Vivaldi's reputation. This spurred the French scholar Marc Pincherle to begin an academic study of Vivaldi's oeuvre. Many Vivaldi manuscripts were rediscovered, which were acquired by the Turin National University Library as a result of the generous sponsorship of Turinese businessmen Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, in memory of their sons. This led to a renewed interest in Vivaldi by, among others, Mario Rinaldi, Alfredo Casella, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, Desmond Chute, Arturo Toscanini, Arnold Schering and Louis Kaufman, all of whom were instrumental in the Vivaldi revival of the twentieth\u00a0century.\r\n\r\nIn 1926, in a monastery in Piedmont, researchers discovered fourteen folios of Vivaldi's work that were previously thought to have been lost during the Napoleonic Wars. Some missing volumes in the numbered set were discovered in the collections of the descendants of the Grand Duke Durazzo, who had acquired the monastery complex in the 18th century. The volumes contained 300 concertos, 19 operas and over 100 vocal-instrumental works.\r\n\r\nThe resurrection of Vivaldi's unpublished works in the 20th century is mostly due to the efforts of Alfredo Casella, who in 1939 organized the historic Vivaldi Week, in which the rediscovered Gloria (RV 589) and l'Olimpiade were revived. Since World War II, Vivaldi's compositions have enjoyed wide success. Historically informed performances, often on \"original instruments,\" have increased Vivaldi's fame still further.\r\n\r\nRecent rediscoveries of works by Vivaldi include two psalm settings of Nisi Dominus<\/i> (RV 803, in eight movements) and Dixit Dominus<\/i> (RV 807, in eleven movements). These were identified in 2003 and 2005 respectively, by the Australian scholar Janice Stockigt. The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot described RV 807 as \"arguably the best nonoperatic work from Vivaldi's pen to come to light since . . . the 1920s.\"\u00a0Vivaldi's lost 1730 opera Argippo<\/i> (RV 697) was rediscovered in 2006 by the harpsichordist and conductor Ond\u0159ej Macek, whose Hofmusici orchestra performed the work at Prague Castle on 3 May 2008, its first performance since 1730.\r\n

Works<\/span><\/h2>\r\nA composition by Vivaldi is identified by RV number, which refers to its place in the \"Ryom-Verzeichnis\" or \"R\u00e9pertoire des oeuvres d'Antonio Vivaldi,\" a catalog created in the 20th century by the musicologist Peter Ryom.\r\n\r\nLe quattro stagioni<\/i> (The Four Seasons) of 1723 is his most famous work. Part of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione<\/i> (\"The Contest between Harmony and Invention\"), it depicts moods and scenes from each of the four seasons. This work has been described as an outstanding instance of pre-19th century program music.\r\n\r\nVivaldi wrote more than 500 other concertos. About 350 of these are for solo instrument and strings, of which 230 are for violin, the others being for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, viola d'amore, recorder, lute, or mandolin. About forty concertos are for two instruments and strings and about thirty are for three or more instruments and strings.\r\n\r\nAs well as about 46 operas, Vivaldi composed a large body of sacred choral music. Other works include sinfonias, about 90 sonatas and chamber music.\r\n\r\nSome sonatas for flute, published as Il Pastor Fido<\/i>, have been erroneously attributed to Vivaldi, but were composed by Nicolas Ch\u00e9deville.","rendered":"

Antonio Vivaldi was certainly a major composer of the late Baroque, but his enduring legacy is generally concentrated in a single genre: the concerto. Vivaldi was a prolific composer and producer of opera and was very successful in his day, but his operatic compositions are not nearly as widely performed today as his concertos.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n
\"Figure<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 1. Antonio Vivaldi (engraving by Fran\u00e7ois Morellon de La Cave (fr), from Michel-Charles Le C\u00e8ne’s edition of Vivaldi’s Op. 8)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi<\/b> (4 March 1678\u201328 July 1741) was an Italian Baroque\u00a0composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He is known mainly for composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0<\/i>, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantuaand Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for preferment. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi’s arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a year later in poverty.<\/p>\n

Life<\/span><\/h2>\n

At the Conservatorio dell’Ospedale della Piet\u00e0<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n

In September 1703, Vivaldi became maestro di violino<\/i> (master of violin) at an orphanage called the Pio Ospedale della Piet\u00e0 (Devout Hospital of Mercy) in Venice.\u00a0While Vivaldi is most famous as a composer, he was regarded as an exceptional technical violinist as well. The German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach referred to Vivaldi as “the famous composer and violinist” and said that “Vivaldi played a solo accompaniment excellently, and at the conclusion he added a free fantasy [an improvised cadenza] which absolutely astounded me, for it is hardly possible that anyone has ever played, or ever will play, in such a fashion.”<\/p>\n

Vivaldi was only 25 when he started working at the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0. Over the next thirty years he composed most of his major works while working there.\u00a0There were four similar institutions in Venice; their purpose was to give shelter and education to children who were abandoned or orphaned, or whose families could not support them. They were financed by funds provided by the Republic.\u00a0The boys learned a trade and had to leave when they reached 15. The girls received a musical education, and the most talented stayed and became members of the Ospedale’s renowned orchestra and choir.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Vivaldi’s appointment, the orphans began to gain appreciation and esteem abroad, too. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas and sacred vocal music for them.\u00a0These sacred works, which number over 60, are varied: they included solo motets and large-scale choral works for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra.\u00a0In 1704, the position of teacher of\u00a0viola all’inglese<\/i> was added to his duties as violin instructor.\u00a0The position of maestro di coro<\/i>, which was at one time filled by Vivaldi, required a lot of time and work. He had to compose an oratorio or concerto at every feast and teach the orphans both music theory and how to play certain instruments.<\/p>\n

His relationship with the board of directors of the Ospedale was often strained. The board had to take a vote every year on whether to keep a teacher. The vote on Vivaldi was seldom unanimous, and went 7 to 6 against him in 1709.\u00a0After a year as a freelance musician, he was recalled by the Ospedale with a unanimous vote in 1711; clearly during his year’s absence the board realized the importance of his role.\u00a0He became responsible for all of the musical activity of the institution\u00a0when he was promoted to maestro de’ concerti<\/i> (music director) in 1716.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 2. Commemorative plaque beside the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 1705, the first collection (Connor Cassara<\/i>) of his works was published by Giuseppe Sala:\u00a0his Opus 1 is a collection of 12 sonatas for two violins and basso continuo, in a conventional style.\u00a0In 1709, a second collection of 12 sonatas for violin and basso continuo appeared, his Opus 2.\u00a0A real breakthrough as a composer came with his first collection of 12 concerti for one, two, and four violins with strings, L’estro armonico<\/i> Opus 3, which was published in Amsterdam in 1711 by Estienne Roger,\u00a0dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. The prince sponsored many musicians including Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel. He was a musician himself, and Vivaldi probably met him in Venice.\u00a0L’estro armonico<\/i> was a resounding success all over Europe. It was followed in 1714 by La stravaganza<\/i> Opus 4, a collection of concerti for solo violin and strings,\u00a0dedicated to an old violin student of Vivaldi’s, the Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin.<\/p>\n

In February 1711, Vivaldi and his father traveled to Brescia, where his setting of the Stabat Mater (RV 621) was played as part of a religious festival. The work seems to have been written in haste: the string parts are simple, the music of the first three movements is repeated in the next three, and not all the text is set. Nevertheless, perhaps in part because of the forced essentiality of the music, the work is one of his early masterpieces.<\/p>\n

Despite his frequent travels from 1718, the Piet\u00e0 paid him 2 sequins to write two concerti a month for the orchestra and to rehearse with them at least five times when in Venice. The Piet\u00e0’s records show that he was paid for 140 concerti between 1723 and 1733.<\/p>\n

Opera Impresario<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Figure<\/p>\n

Figure 3. First edition of Juditha triumphans<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In early 18th-century Venice, opera was the most popular musical entertainment. It proved most profitable for Vivaldi. There were several theaters competing for the public’s attention. Vivaldi started his career as an opera composer as a sideline: his first opera, Ottone in villa<\/i> (RV 729) was performed not in Venice, but at the Garzerie Theater in Vicenza in 1713.\u00a0The following year, Vivaldi became the impresario of the Teatro San Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo<\/i> (RV 727) was performed. The work was not to the public’s taste, and it closed after a couple of weeks, being replaced with a repeat of a different work already given the previous year.<\/p>\n

In 1715, he presented Nerone fatto Cesare<\/i> (RV 724, now lost), with music by seven different composers, of which he was the leader. The opera contained eleven arias, and was a success. In the late season, Vivaldi planned to put on an opera composed entirely by him, Arsilda, regina di Ponto<\/i> (RV 700), but the state censor blocked the performance. The main character, Arsilda, falls in love with another woman, Lisea, who is pretending to be a man.\u00a0Vivaldi got the censor to accept the opera the following year, and it was a resounding success.<\/p>\n

At this period, the Piet\u00e0<\/i> commissioned several liturgical works. The most important were two oratorios. Moyses Deus Pharaonis<\/i>, (RV 643) is lost. The second, Juditha triumphans<\/i> (RV 644), celebrates the victory of the Republic of Venice against the Turks and the recapture of the island of Corfu. Composed in 1716, it is one of his sacred masterpieces. All eleven singing parts were performed by girls of the Piet\u00e0, both the female and male roles. Many of the arias include parts for solo instruments\u2014recorders, oboes, violas d’amore, and mandolins\u2014that showcased the range of talents of the girls.<\/p>\n

Also in 1716, Vivaldi wrote and produced two more operas, L’incoronazione di Dario<\/i> (RV 719) and La costanza trionfante degli amori e degli odi\u00a0<\/i>(RV 706). The latter was so popular that it performed two years later, re-edited and retitled Artabano re dei Parti<\/i> (RV 701, now lost). It was also performed in Prague in 1732. In the following years, Vivaldi wrote several operas that were performed all over Italy.<\/p>\n

His progressive operatic style caused him some trouble with more conservative musicians, like Benedetto Marcello, a magistrate and amateur musician who wrote a pamphlet denouncing him and his operas. The pamphlet, Il teatro alla moda<\/i>, attacks Vivaldi without mentioning him directly. The cover drawing shows a boat (the Sant’Angelo), on the left end of which stands a little angel wearing a priest’s hat and playing the violin. The Marcello family claimed ownership of the Teatro Sant’Angelo, and a long legal battle had been fought with the management for its restitution, without success. The obscure writing under the picture mentions non-existent places and names: ALDIVIVA<\/i> is an anagram of A. Vivaldi<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In a letter written by Vivaldi to his patron Marchese Bentivoglio in 1737, he makes reference to his “94 operas.” Only around 50 operas by Vivaldi have been discovered, and no other documentation of the remaining operas exists. Although Vivaldi may have exaggerated, in his dual role of composer and impresario<\/i> it is plausible that he may either have written or been responsible for the production of as many as 94 operas during a career which by then had spanned almost 25 years.\u00a0While Vivaldi certainly composed many operas in his time, he never reached the prominence of other great composers like Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolph Hasse, Leonardo Leo, and Baldassare Galuppi, as evidenced by his inability to keep a production running for any extended period of time in any major opera house.<\/p>\n

His most successful operas were La costanza trionfante<\/i> and Farnace<\/i> which garnered six revivals each.<\/p>\n

Mantua and the Four Seasons<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n

In 1717 or 1718, Vivaldi was offered a new prestigious position as Maestro di Cappella<\/i> of the court of prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua.[33]<\/sup> He moved there for three years and produced several operas, among which was Tito Manlio<\/i> (RV 738). In 1721, he was in Milan, where he presented the pastoral drama La Silvia<\/i> (RV 734, 9 arias survive). He visited Milan again the following year with the oratorio L’adorazione delli tre re magi al bambino Ges\u00f9<\/i> (RV 645, also lost). In 1722 he moved to Rome, where he introduced his operas’ new style. The new pope Benedict XIII invited Vivaldi to play for him. In 1725, Vivaldi returned to Venice, where he produced four operas in the same year.<\/p>\n

During this period Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons<\/i>, four violin concertos depicting scenes appropriate for each season. Three of the concerti are of original conception, while the first, “Spring,” borrows motifs from a Sinfonia in the first act of his contemporaneous opera “Il Giustino.<\/i>” The inspiration for the concertos was probably the countryside around Mantua. They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties from both the hunters’ and the prey’s point of view, frozen landscapes, ice-skating children, and warming winter fires. Each concerto is associated with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi, describing the scenes depicted in the music. They were published as the first four concertos in a collection of twelve,\u00a0Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione<\/i>, Opus 8, published in Amsterdam by Michel-Charles Le C\u00e8ne in 1725.<\/p>\n

During his time in Mantua, Vivaldi became acquainted with an aspiring young singer Anna Tessieri Gir\u00f2 who was to become his student, prot\u00e9g\u00e9e, and favorite prima donna.\u00a0Anna, along with her older half-sister Paolina, became part of Vivaldi’s entourage and regularly accompanied him on his many travels. There was speculation about the nature of Vivaldi’s and Giro’s relationship, but no evidence to indicate anything beyond friendship and professional collaboration. Although Vivaldi’s relationship with Anna Gir\u00f2 was questioned, he adamantly denied any romantic relationship in a letter to his patron Bentivoglio dated 16 November 1737.<\/p>\n

Later Life and Death<\/span><\/h3>\n

At the height of his career, Vivaldi received commissions from European nobility and royalty. The serenata<\/i> (cantata) Gloria e Imeneo<\/i> (RV 687) was commissioned in 1725 by the French ambassador to Venice in celebration of the marriage of Louis XV. The following year, another serenata<\/i>,\u00a0La Sena festeggiante<\/i> (RV 694), was written for and premiered at the French embassy as well, celebrating the birth of the French royal princesses,\u00a0Henriette and Louise \u00c9lisabeth. Vivaldi’s Opus 9, La Cetra<\/i>, was dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. In 1728, Vivaldi met the emperor while the emperor was visiting Trieste to oversee the construction of a new port. Charles admired the music of the Red Priest so much that he is said to have spoken more with the composer during their one meeting than he spoke to his ministers in over two years. He gave Vivaldi the title of knight, a gold medal and an invitation to Vienna. Vivaldi gave Charles a manuscript copy of La Cetra<\/i>, a set of concerti almost completely different from the set of the same title published as Opus 9. The printing was probably delayed, forcing Vivaldi to gather an improvised collection for the emperor.<\/p>\n

Accompanied by his father, Vivaldi traveled to Vienna and Prague in 1730, where his opera Farnace\u00a0<\/i>(RV 711) was presented.\u00a0Some of his later operas were created in collaboration with two of Italy’s major writers of the time. L’Olimpiade<\/i> and Catone in Utica<\/i> were written by Pietro Metastasio, the major representative of the Arcadian movement and court poet in Vienna. La Griselda<\/i> was rewritten by the young Carlo Goldoni from an earlier libretto by Apostolo Zeno.<\/p>\n

Like many composers of the time, the final years of Vivaldi’s life found him in financial difficulties. His compositions were no longer held in such high esteem as they once were in Venice; changing musical tastes quickly made them outmoded. In response, Vivaldi chose to sell off sizeable numbers of his manuscripts at paltry prices to finance his migration to Vienna.\u00a0The reasons for Vivaldi’s departure from Venice are unclear, but it seems likely that, after the success of his meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he wished to take up the position of a composer in the imperial court. On his way to Vienna, Vivaldi may have stopped in Graz to see Anna Gir\u00f2.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 4. Caricature by P. L. Ghezzi, Rome (1723)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is also likely that Vivaldi went to Vienna to stage operas, especially as he took up residence near the K\u00e4rntnertortheater. Shortly after his arrival in Vienna, Charles VI died, which left the composer without any royal protection or a steady source of income. Soon afterwards, Vivaldi became impoverished\u00a0and died during the night of 27\/28 July 1741, aged 63,\u00a0of “internal infection,” in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker. On 28 July he was buried in a simple grave in a burial ground that was owned by the public hospital fund. Vivaldi’s funeral took place at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, but the young Joseph Haydn had nothing to do with this burial, since no music was performed on that occasion.\u00a0The cost of his funeral with a ‘Kleingel\u00e4ut’ was 19 Gulden 45 Kreuzer which was rather expensive for the lowest class of peal of bells.<\/p>\n

He was buried next to Karlskirche, in an area which is now part of the site of the Technical Institute. The house where he lived in Vienna has since been destroyed; the Hotel Sacher is built on part of the site. Memorial plaques have been placed at both locations, as well as a Vivaldi “star” in the Viennese Musikmeile and a monument at the Rooseveltplatz.<\/p>\n

Only three portraits of Vivaldi are known to survive: an engraving, an ink sketch and an oil painting. The ink sketch, a caricature (as seen in figure 4), was done by Ghezzi in 1723 and shows Vivaldi’s head and shoulders in profile.<\/p>\n

Style and Influence<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Listen: “La primavera” (Spring) \u2013 Movement 1: Allegro from The Four Seasons<\/h3>\n

Please listen to a 2000 live performance by Wichita State University Chamber Players.<\/p>\n


\nhttp:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/3\/3c\/01_-_Vivaldi_Spring_mvt_1_Allegro_-_John_Harrison_violin.ogg<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Vivaldi’s music was innovative. He brightened the formal and rhythmic structure of the concerto, in which he looked for harmonic contrasts and innovative melodies and themes; many of his compositions are flamboyantly, almost playfully, exuberant.<\/p>\n

Johann Sebastian Bach was deeply influenced by Vivaldi’s concertos and arias (recalled in his St John Passion<\/i>, St Matthew Passion<\/i>, and cantatas). Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi’s concerti for solo keyboard, three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065) based upon the concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).<\/p>\n

Posthumous Reputation<\/span><\/h2>\n

During his lifetime, Vivaldi’s popularity quickly made him famous in other countries, including France, but after his death the composer’s popularity dwindled. After the Baroque period, Vivaldi’s published concerti became relatively unknown and were largely ignored. Even Vivaldi’s most famous work, The Four Seasons<\/i>, was unknown in its original edition during the Classical and Romantic periods.<\/p>\n

During the early twentieth\u00a0century, Fritz Kreisler’s Concerto in C, in the Style of Vivaldi (which he passed off as an original Vivaldi work) helped revive Vivaldi’s reputation. This spurred the French scholar Marc Pincherle to begin an academic study of Vivaldi’s oeuvre. Many Vivaldi manuscripts were rediscovered, which were acquired by the Turin National University Library as a result of the generous sponsorship of Turinese businessmen Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, in memory of their sons. This led to a renewed interest in Vivaldi by, among others, Mario Rinaldi, Alfredo Casella, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, Desmond Chute, Arturo Toscanini, Arnold Schering and Louis Kaufman, all of whom were instrumental in the Vivaldi revival of the twentieth\u00a0century.<\/p>\n

In 1926, in a monastery in Piedmont, researchers discovered fourteen folios of Vivaldi’s work that were previously thought to have been lost during the Napoleonic Wars. Some missing volumes in the numbered set were discovered in the collections of the descendants of the Grand Duke Durazzo, who had acquired the monastery complex in the 18th century. The volumes contained 300 concertos, 19 operas and over 100 vocal-instrumental works.<\/p>\n

The resurrection of Vivaldi’s unpublished works in the 20th century is mostly due to the efforts of Alfredo Casella, who in 1939 organized the historic Vivaldi Week, in which the rediscovered Gloria (RV 589) and l’Olimpiade were revived. Since World War II, Vivaldi’s compositions have enjoyed wide success. Historically informed performances, often on “original instruments,” have increased Vivaldi’s fame still further.<\/p>\n

Recent rediscoveries of works by Vivaldi include two psalm settings of Nisi Dominus<\/i> (RV 803, in eight movements) and Dixit Dominus<\/i> (RV 807, in eleven movements). These were identified in 2003 and 2005 respectively, by the Australian scholar Janice Stockigt. The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot described RV 807 as “arguably the best nonoperatic work from Vivaldi’s pen to come to light since . . . the 1920s.”\u00a0Vivaldi’s lost 1730 opera Argippo<\/i> (RV 697) was rediscovered in 2006 by the harpsichordist and conductor Ond\u0159ej Macek, whose Hofmusici orchestra performed the work at Prague Castle on 3 May 2008, its first performance since 1730.<\/p>\n

Works<\/span><\/h2>\n

A composition by Vivaldi is identified by RV number, which refers to its place in the “Ryom-Verzeichnis” or “R\u00e9pertoire des oeuvres d’Antonio Vivaldi,” a catalog created in the 20th century by the musicologist Peter Ryom.<\/p>\n

Le quattro stagioni<\/i> (The Four Seasons) of 1723 is his most famous work. Part of Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione<\/i> (“The Contest between Harmony and Invention”), it depicts moods and scenes from each of the four seasons. This work has been described as an outstanding instance of pre-19th century program music.<\/p>\n

Vivaldi wrote more than 500 other concertos. About 350 of these are for solo instrument and strings, of which 230 are for violin, the others being for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, viola d’amore, recorder, lute, or mandolin. About forty concertos are for two instruments and strings and about thirty are for three or more instruments and strings.<\/p>\n

As well as about 46 operas, Vivaldi composed a large body of sacred choral music. Other works include sinfonias, about 90 sonatas and chamber music.<\/p>\n

Some sonatas for flute, published as Il Pastor Fido<\/i>, have been erroneously attributed to Vivaldi, but were composed by Nicolas Ch\u00e9deville.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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