Antonio Vivaldi

I

Introduction

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Italian musician, the most influential composer and violinist of his age. A prolific composer, he wrote nearly 500 concertos and established the concerto form for the baroque period. Vivaldi’s best-known concertos are The Four Seasons (1725).

Vivaldi was born in Venice and trained by his father, a violinist at Saint Mark’s Cathedral. Ordained a priest in 1703, Vivaldi began teaching that year at the Ospedale della Pietà, a conservatory that trained musically talented orphaned girls. He remained associated with the Pietà until 1740, at first as a teacher of violin and composition and from 1716 on as music director, although he traveled widely and was often absent. In addition to training the students, he composed concertos and oratorios for weekly concerts, and established an international reputation. From 1713 on, Vivaldi was active as an opera composer and producer in Venice and traveled to Rome, Mantua, and elsewhere to oversee performances of his operas. In 1740 he traveled to Vienna, Austria. He died in poverty in Vienna the following year.

II

Compositions

Vivaldi’s output was enormous. His instrumental works include nearly 500 concertos and more than 70 sonatas written for an astonishing variety of instruments. About half of the concertos are for violin; others were composed for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, mandolin, and various lesser-known instruments. Some are concerti grossi—compositions for a small group of soloists and a larger orchestral ensemble. A few are ripieno concertos—that is, for a full, though small, orchestra without soloists.

To make his orchestration more interesting, Vivaldi wrote for less common instruments such as the theorbo, a kind of lute, and for unusual combinations of instruments, such as two violins and two organs, lute and violin, or viola d’amore and lute. In a number of works he gave the solo part to instruments traditionally used for accompaniment, such as the bassoon or cello. His sonatas and concertos for cello contributed to the instrument’s growing popularity. He was the first to write for the chalumeau, an ancestor of the clarinet.

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Vivaldi’s sense of instruments produced sound color and musical effects of great beauty, as in the slow movement of the Concerto for Four Violins in B minor from Opus 3. He wrote with great brilliance and charm for the flute. The concertos for bassoon demand great virtuosity and fully realize the lyrical powers of the instrument. The opening themes of many of his concertos are bold and striking, but of all his gifts the most enduringly attractive is his lyricism. His slow movements, especially in the violin concertos, are like short operatic arias, with the instrument appearing to sing.

Vivaldi also composed vocal music, both religious and secular (nonreligious). His numerous choral works for churches include masses, psalms, motets, and oratorios. Among his best-known religious compositions are the Gloria in D (1708), the Stabat Mater (1712), and the oratorio Juditha triumphans (1716). His secular vocal music includes cantatas and operas. Vivaldi claimed to have written more than 90 operas but only about 20 have survived, among them Giustino (Justinian, 1724), Orlando furioso (The Mad Roland, 1727), and L’Olimpiade (The Olympiad, 1734). In general the operas take their themes from ancient history and mythology.

III

Innovations and Influence

From about 1750 on, after Vivaldi’s death, Italian composers primarily produced opera. However, for about the hundred years before 1750, Italy had been prolific in the production of music for the violin, the instrument that comes nearest in sound to the human voice. By Vivaldi’s time, the music of his most distinguished predecessor, Arcangelo Corelli, who died in 1713, was starting to seem old-fashioned. Corelli also wrote concerti grossi, but Corelli did little to differentiate the music played by the full orchestra from the music of the soloists. Vivaldi provided contrast between the two.

Vivaldi's concertos provided a model for the genre for composers throughout Europe. He established the standard three-movement format, in which a slow movement appears between two fast outer movements. He was the first composer who consistently used the ritornello (refrain) form that became standard for the fast movements of concertos. The ritornello is a musical theme played by the full orchestra that recurs in different keys throughout the movement. It alternates with passages dominated by the soloist, who introduces new, often virtuosic music. Vivaldi was among the first to introduce cadenzas—passages of extraordinary technical virtuosity—for soloists.

Vivaldi’s Opus 8 concertos entitled The Four Seasons are early examples of orchestral program music—music that describes a nonmusical idea. Each of the four concertos for strings and solo violin in The Four Seasons musically represents a different season of the year. Vivaldi published poems that describe the activities and moods represented by the music. Like much of his music, these concertos are marked by vigorous rhythms and strong contrasts.

L’estro harmonico (The Harmonic Whim), a collection of 12 concertos by Vivaldi for from one to four violins, was published in 1711 and proved highly influential, especially in Germany where it was studied by German composer Johann Sebastian Bach during his formative years. Bach made transcriptions, mostly for harpsichord, of a number of Vivaldi’s concertos and sonatas for violin. For many years Vivaldi was remembered chiefly for the transcriptions made by Bach.

During his lifetime Vivaldi was admired more as a violinist than as a composer. His skills and innovations advanced bowing techniques and string-playing generally. Largely forgotten after his death, the works of Vivaldi were rediscovered toward the end of the 19th century through Bach’s transcriptions. Scholarly interest in Bach led to interest in Vivaldi’s influence on Bach. Manuscripts for a number of Vivaldi’s sacred works were discovered in the 1920s, and a complete catalogue and publication of Vivaldi’s instrumental works was finally undertaken in 1947. Vivaldi’s popularity grew steadily during the last half of the 20th century, when his position in the history of music became firmly established. Interest in his operas and religious music began to increase in the late 20th century.

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