Antonio Vivaldi
(1678-1741)
Dresden Concerti
Volume 4
Concerto in D minor,
RV240; Concerto in B minor, RV388
Concerto in E flat
major, RV260; Concerto in A major, RV344
Concerto in D major,
RV224; Concerto in D major, RV219
Concerto in D major,
RV213
Once virtually forgotten, Antonio Vivaldi now enjoys a reputation that
equals the international fame he enjoyed in his heyday. Born in Venice in 1678,
the son of a barber who was himself to win distinction as a violinist in the
service of the basilica of San Marco, he studied for the priesthood and was
ordained in 1703. At the same time he established himself as a violinist of
remarkable ability. A later visitor to Venice described his playing in the
opera-house in 1715, his use of high positions so that his fingers almost
touched the bridge of the violin, leaving little room for the bow, and his
contrapuntal cadenza, a fugue played at great speed. The experience, the
observer added, was too artificial to be enjoyable. Nevertheless Vivaldi was
among the most famous virtuosi of the day, as well as being a prolific composer
of music that won wide favour at home and abroad and exercised a far-reaching
influence on the music of others.
For much of his life Vivaldi was intermittently associated with the
Ospedale della Pietá, one of the four famous foundations in Venice for the
education of orphan, illegitimate or indigent girls, a select group of whom
were trained as musicians. Venice attracted, then as now, many foreign
tourists, and the Pietá and its music long remained a centre of cultural
pilgrimage. In 1703, the year of his ordination, Vivaldi, known as il prete
rosso, the red priest, from the inherited colour of his hair, was appointed
violin-master of the pupils of the Pietá. The position was subject to annual
renewal by the board of governors, whose voting was not invariably in Vivaldi's
favour, particularly as his reputation and consequent obligations outside the
orphanage increased. In 1709 he briefly left the Pietá, to be reinstated in
1711. In 1716 he was again removed, to be given, a month later, the title Maestro
de' Concerti, director of instrumental music. A year later he left the
Pietá for a period of three years spent in Mantua as Maestro di Cappella da
Camera to Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, the German nobleman appointed
by the Emperor in Vienna to govern the city. By 1720 Vivaldi was again in
Venice and in 1723 the relationship with the Pietá was resumed, apparently on a
less formal basis. Vivaldi was commissioned to write two new concertos a month,
and to rehearse and direct the performance of some of them. The arrangement
allowed him to travel and he spent some time in Rome, and indirectly sought
possible appointment in Paris through dedicating compositions to Louis XV,
although there was no practical result. Vienna seemed to offer more, with the good will of
Charles VI, whose inopportune death, when Vivaldi attempted in old age to find
employment there, must have proved a very considerable disappointment. In 1730
Vivaldi visited Bohemia; in 1735 he was appointed again to the position of Maestro
de' Concerti at the Pietá and in 1738 he appeared in Amsterdam, where he
led the orchestra at the centenary of the Schouwburg Theatre. By 1740, however,
Venice had begun to grow tired of Vivaldi, and shortly after the performance of
concertos specially written as part of a serenata for the entertainment of the
young Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony his impending departure was
announced to the governors of the Pietá, who were asked, and at first refused,
to buy some of his concertos.
The following year Vivaldi travelled to Vienna, where he arrived in
June, and had time to sell some of the scores he had brought with him, before
succumbing to some form of stomach inflammation. He died a month to the day after
his arrival and was buried the same day with as little expense as possible. As
was remarked in Venice, he had once been worth 50,000 ducats a year, but
through his extravagance he died in poverty.
Much of Vivaldi's expenditure was presumably in the opera-house. He was
associated from 1714 with the management of the San Angelo Theatre, a
second-rate house which nevertheless began to win a name for decent
performances, whatever its economies in quality and spectacle. Vivaldi is known
to have written some 46 operas, and possibly some 40 more than this; he was
also involved as composer and entrepreneur in their production in other houses
in Italy. It was his work in the opera-house that led to Benedetto Marcello's
satirical attack on him in 1720 in Il teatro alla moda, on the
frontispiece of which Aldaviva, alias Vivaldi, is seen as an angel with a
fiddle, wearing a priest's hat, standing on the tiller with one foot raised, as
if to beat time. It has been suggested that "on the fiddle" had
similar connotations in Italian to those it retains in English. Vivaldi had his
enemies.
In April 1716 four musicians, the young organist and later performer on
the fashionable pantaleon Johann Christoph Richter, the organist and composer
Christian Pezold, the composer Jan Dismas Zelenka and the violinist Johann
Georg Pisendel came to Venice, as part of the entourage of Frederick Augustus,
future Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Pisendel, born in Cadolzburg in
1687, had joined the Dresden court musical establishment in 1712. He had
earlier served as a chorister at Anspach and had studied with the Kapellmeister
of the Margrave of Brandenburg there, Francesco Pistocchi, and with Giuseppe
Torelli. In Venice he delighted his patron by outwitting Italian musicians in
the performance of a concerto by Vivaldi. The Italians decided to play the last
movement molto accelerando, but Pisendel seemingly brought them to order
by stamping out the beat. He established a friendly relationship with Vivaldi,
who on one occasion saved him from threatened interrogation by the secret
police, who had mistaken him for a suspect foreigner. This friendship is
reflected in dedications of concertos to Pisendel and in the concertos of Vivaldi
found in autograph in the Dresden library. Pisendel studied with Vivaldi
between April and December and returned to Italy the following year, when he
visited Naples, Rome and Florence. His career continued, largely in Dresden,
and he remained, reputedly, the most distinguished German violinist of his day.
His pupils included Franz Benda.
Vivaldi's connection with Dresden and the royal house of Saxony
continued in 1740 with the visit to Venice of Frederick Christian, son of the
Elector, an event celebrated by the Pietá with a set of new works by Vivaldi.
The present violin concertos survive in manuscript in the Dresden Saxony
Landesbibliothek and represent part of the repertoire of the distinguished
orchestra employed at the court.
The Concerto in D minor, RV 240, starts with the customary
opening ripieno, a descending scale figuration in the violas and cellos. The
first solo entry is over a sustained tonic, with syncopation giving way to
broken chord patterns in the solo part. The ritornello appears again,
now in A minor, followed by a second solo entry, leading in turn to the
ritornello now in F major, after which the solo violin introduces anew pattern.
The ritornello is heard again, now in G minor, followed by a passage involving
solo double-stopping, before a brief reference to the material of the first
solo entry and the final ritornello. The slow movement is introduced by the
whole ensemble, leading to a solo aria in triplet rhythm. The concerto ends
with a triple-metre Allegro, introduced by the violins together, with
violas and the bass line in thirds. The first solo entry allows the cello to
echo the violin and the succeeding modulations take the ritornello and solo
entries through the keys of A minor, B flat major and G minor, before the tonic
key is restored, after a passage of solo double-stopping in thirds, followed by
running semiquavers.
The Concerto in B minor, RV 388, follows a similar form. The
opening ritornello is based on an arpeggio pattern, with the second violins
answering the first, in imitation. The first solo entry introduces varied
rhythms and after a ritornello in D major the soloist offers a passage of
double-stopping against a sustained note. The following appearances of the
ritornello and corresponding solo sections are in E minor, in G major and again
in B minor, as the movement comes to an end. The slow movement offers an aria
for the solo violin, now accompanied only by violins and violas, followed by a
final triple-metre Allegro, starting with a ritornello which will frame
four succeeding solo entries.
Broken chord figuration, against an energetic figure in the violas and
cellos, starts the Concerto in E flat major, RV 260. More elaborate solo
entries demand double and treble stopping and the use of the higher register of
the solo violin, ascending to a high B flat, a suggestion of the technical
prowess of the composer described by the Frankfurt architect Johann Friedrich
Armand von Uffenbach in 1715. The slow movement is an extended aria in C minor
and the work ends with a triple-metre Allegro, starting with a
characteristic melodic and rhythmic pattern in a ritornello that frames a
series of demanding solo entries.
The Concerto in A major, RV 344, is introduced by the soloist in
a series of ascending arpeggios, each one echoed softly by the orchestra. There
are modulations through C sharp minor, E major and F sharp minor, before the
movement comes to an end with the final appearance of the ritornello, after a
display of wide-spaced arpeggios from the soloist. There is a dotted
accompaniment to the triplet-rhythm solo aria of the slow movement and this is
capped by an energetic final movement, its solo passages replete with arpeggio
figuration and the use of the higher register of the violin.
After the opening ritornello of the Concerto in D major, RV 224,
the soloist enters with a passage using sequential patterns and exploring the
higher register of the violin. The ritornello appears in A major, followed by
virtuoso arpeggio figuration for the soloist, who returns, after a ripieno B
minor, in a series of double-stops. The Largo offers an A major aria
for the soloist and continuo, leading to a final movement with further elements
of solo display, between the recurrent appearances of an emphatic ritornello.
In the Concerto in D major, RV 219, the soloist leads with the
high-register notes of the broken tonic chord. The following solo entries call
for a rapid alternation of the open A string with the higher notes of the E
string, displays of arpeggiation and modulations that pass through the relative
minor and dominant keys. The slow movement is again for solo violin and
continuo, allowing the ripieno to return to open the final Allegro, followed
by a solo episode in double-stopped thirds and a further exploration of the
higher register of the instrument.
The Concerto in D major, RV 213, opens with a pattern of repeated
notes for the violins, allowing the soloist to continue a similar figuration.
An appearance of the ritornello in A major is followed by an element of
bariolage in the solo part, involving a rapid alternation of a fingered E and
the open E string. The opening ripieno figuration in B minor introduces the
slow movement and punctuates the appearances of the soloist, with a final
movement that includes a Fantasia, a free fantasy or cadenza, such as
Vivaldi himself would have improvised in performance.