# Antonio's Vivaldi's best works



## Vivaldi

*Antonio Vivaldi's best works*

Vivaldi is seldom underestimated by many and for this reason I have compiled a short list of his best works. Whilst 'le quattro stagioni' is among the best of his efforts in the Ryom-Verzeichnis it is overexposed - much like Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto. This is not a definitive list and is entirely subjective. It's purpose is to bring to light some of Vivaldi's best vocal and instrumental works not popularized by the media.

Many listeners must have discovered how much easier it is to mistake one Vivaldi composition for another than to identify its composer wrongly. To say this is neither to endorse Stravinsky's supercilious observation, inherited from Dallapiccola, that Vivaldi could 'compose the same form so many times over' nor to make an obvious deduction from the fact that he borrowed copiously from his own works but sparingly from those of other composers. Even by the standards of his age, when plagiarism from other composers was frequently castigated by critics but self-borrowing raised hardly a murmur, his style remained remarkably constant.

He was not one of those composers like Caldara and Lotti who could write in a 'strict' style for the church and a 'free' style for the theatre. Try as he might on occasion to compose in the learned style, the French style or even the bel canto style, Vivaldi proved (perhaps fortunately) a bad imitator incapable of suppressing his individuality. It was in fact his ndividuality that attracted attention from composers outside of Europe i.e. Bach. It was in Weimar that Bach transcribed three concertos by Vivaldi for solo organ based on 
two concertos from L'estro armonico: No. 8 (RV 522, for 2 violins and strings, in A minor(B minor)) No 11.

*Vivaldi's own work:*






Here we have the hybrid synergy of High German and Italian styles in all of it's opulence and majesty *by Bach:*






It would be a mistake to equate counterpoint with specific contrapuntal devices such as ostinato or imitation, which are certainly less evident in Vivaldi's music, taken as a whole, than in that of Corelli, Couperin, Purcell or Bach. As a contrapuntist Vivaldi achieves excellence when he brings together two or three lines of contrasted melodic and rhythmic character. He has a gift for fresh - which is to say unusual - part-writing, so that even a viola part (in Italian music, generally a receptacle for the harmonic leavings of the other parts) may sparkle.

Even more than Bach, he likes to 'drop' his leading-notes when he can thereby obtain an interesting melodic line or effective spacing of the parts.Nevertheless, his part-writing is not beyond criticism. His liking for parallel movement in several parts, including the bass, often brings him perilously close to consecutive fifths or octaves.

The type of passage which once embroiled Corelli in an acrimonious dispute with critics in Bologna occurs again and again in Vivaldi's compositions. Perhaps it was to this shortcoming (in the eyes of contemporaries) that Goldoni alluded when he wrote: 'However much connoisseurs claimed that he [Vivaldi] was deficient in counterpoint and did not compose basses correctly, he made his parts sing nicely'

That being said, fluent contrapuntist though he was when working with three or four parts, Vivaldi seems distinctly uncomfortable when their number rises; the seven real contrapuntal parts (one short of the theoretical maximum, there being eight vocal parts) in the 'Sicut erat in principio' fugue of the Dixit Dominus RV 594 take him to the limit of his ability and is thus deemed his greatest contrapuntal effort:


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https://soundcloud.com/user305636706%2Fdixit-dominus-psalm-109-rv-594

Vivaldi's approach to modulation is characteristically personal. He is apt to short-circuit the normal process of modulation, establishing a new key via its mediant, subdominant, submediant or leading-note chord rather than the conventional dominant. The listener is jerked, not smoothly carried, into the new key. Even when the dominant is the point of entry, it may arrive quite suddenly and entail the chromatic alteration of several notes.

The range of keys visited in the course of a movement is rarely exceptional for the period, though some minor-key movements wander considerable distances up and down the circle of fifths. One of Vivaldi's boldest and most convincing tonal designs occurs in the 'Et in terra pax' of the Gloria RV 589. The transition from C minor to B minor is effected by an ingenious piece of enharmonic punning: the ringed bass note F, apparently a dominant seventh in C minor, resolves upwards to F sharp as if it were E sharp, root of a 'German sixth' chord.






His use of pizzicato is more often selective than general, however, being found predominantly in bass parts. He does not lack ingenuity: the aria 'Sento in seno ch'in pioggia di lagrime' (I feel in my breast that in a rain of tears) is picturesquely accompanied by a shower of raindrops on the strings ('tutti pizzicati senza cembalo') except for three instruments - a first violin, a second violin and a bass - who are instructed to play the same parts with their bows. This work provides an 'ethereal' dimension to his usual style - I interpret this through means of this diagram.

A | B

A represents an observer listening to this piece in this dimension. They would hear strings - no pizzicato.
| separates this dimension with the 'ghostly - ethereal' realm 
B is a spectral (ghostly) observer listening to the notes permeate from dimension A to dimension B - all they hear are the remnants of the notes - the pizzicato


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## Vivaldi

Concertos without a soloist served Vivaldi as a test-bed for some of his most radical and ingenious experiments in form. The incipits of his early efforts RV 163 offer interesting variations on the basic shape Bb-f-Bb. The use of pizzicato is another rare occurrence that affirms his 'organic' experimentation. This piece expounds his audacious attempt to exhaust a melody of all its variations:





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When writing fugally, he is admittedly more concerned with the immediately expressive qualities of the texture than with its challenge to his - and the listener's - intellect. Thus he does not deploy the full array of 
fugal devices as we know them from Bach's works. Augmentation, diminution and inversion of the subject; the separate exposition and subsequent combination of different subjects: these rarely interest him. However, he evinces a fondness for double and triple counterpoint (like many of his Italian contemporaries he frequently introduces his countersubjects, or additional subjects, together with the principal subject from the outset), for long pedal-points at the climax of the movement, and for stretto. His finest achievement in fugai writing is 
perhaps the fast section of the 'Ouverture' which begins the second part of 'La Senna festeggiante'.

*SKIP To 49:25 in the video*






To finish this thread, I'd like to leave you with a few personal favorites of mine:

RV 565, for 2 violins, cello, and strings, in D minor:






The version rearranged by J.S Bach for organ (Vivaldi had a tremendous impact on Bach).






Beatus Vir RV 597






Beatus Vir (Psalm 111), RV 597 V:


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https://soundcloud.com/user305636706%2Fbeatus-vir-psalm-111-rv-597-v

There are a plethora of other outstanding works too. Vivaldi was a composer with audacious productivity although the works listed here are undoubtedly his best efforts outside of 'The four Seasons - Notice how they are predominately vocal works too!


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## Tero

The concertos for multiple instruments are my favorites. Also most wind concertos.


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