# Why did Bach use Vivaldi's works?



## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Why did Bach use Vivaldi's works? Since nobody asked this, I am asking. Vivaldi didn't use Bach's works but Bach used Vivaldi's works, why?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Check the dates, for starters. Then consider egos; that might need a little research. The Red Priest; Tartini's viewpoint. Research is good for the soul.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Don't know, I'll ask them when I see them


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Because Vivaldi's was three movement concerto format was totally new and "fashionable" when Bach studied them. That's why Vivaldi wrote so many three movement concertos because listeners then loved it. So Bach (a local German who never traveled abroad during his life) copied Vivaldi's scores to study them, arrange them etc.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

From Christoph Wolff:

"Bach's study of Vivaldi represents a critical moment, perhaps the culmination point, in a development of self-guided learning that began with the study of fugue and peaked in a thoroughly analytical approach to the modern Italian concerto style of Vivaldi, the Marcellos, and their contemporaries, resulting in the emergence of new structural designs."
"Bach's confrontation with the modern Italian concerto idiom in the years before 1714 ultimately provoked what became the strongest, most lasting, and most distinctive development toward shaping his personal style: the coupling of Italianism with complex yet elegant counterpoint, marked by animated interrweavings of the inner voices as well as harmonic depth and finesse."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Do we know what he did with these transcriptions? Were they used for concerts? 

Listen to how the character of rv208 /iii is transformed in bwv 594/iii. We've moved from flashy soloist with background stuffing in Vivaldi to more complex dissonant voix égales polyphony. I haven't studied it but presumably he's enriching the harmony by emphasising the lower voices and adding his own elaboration. I wonder if he's making melodic changes too.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> From Christoph Wolff:
> 
> "Bach's study of Vivaldi represents a critical moment, perhaps the culmination point, in a development of self-guided learning that began with the study of fugue and peaked in a thoroughly analytical approach to the modern Italian concerto style of Vivaldi, the Marcellos, and their contemporaries, resulting in the emergence of new structural designs."
> "Bach's confrontation with the modern Italian concerto idiom in the years before 1714 ultimately provoked what became the strongest, most lasting, and most distinctive development toward shaping his personal style: the coupling of Italianism with complex yet elegant counterpoint, marked by animated interrweavings of the inner voices as well as harmonic depth and finesse."


Thanks. I have just decided that it's about time I bought that book!


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Do we know what he did with these transcriptions? Were they used for concerts?


I have read somewhere, that the arrangements were commisioned by the young Prince Johan Ernst. For the same reason Johan Gottfried Walther, who also was organist in Weimar, made a number of keyboard transcriptions of Italian concertos.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> From Christoph Wolff:
> 
> "Bach's study of Vivaldi represents a critical moment, perhaps the culmination point, in a development of self-guided learning that began with the study of fugue and peaked in a thoroughly analytical approach to the modern Italian concerto style of Vivaldi, the Marcellos, and their contemporaries, resulting in the emergence of new structural designs."
> "Bach's confrontation with the modern Italian concerto idiom in the years before 1714 ultimately provoked what became the strongest, most lasting, and most distinctive development toward shaping his personal style: the coupling of Italianism with complex yet elegant counterpoint, marked by animated interrweavings of the inner voices as well as harmonic depth and finesse."


Very good quote. Professor Wolff is one of the world's most renowned authority on Johann Sebastian Bach.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Because he had a crush, and so he said " 'm gonna make it my own bitch" and that is how we got new sewing machine models.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Given that Bach was a supreme mega-genius:

Perhaps he was anticipating the birth of US Public Radio and the pithy 7 minute filler, hour after hour after hour after....


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Nicely done Nereffid. To paraphrase: Because he was smart enough to know what to study.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Because he had a crush, and so he said " 'm gonna make it my own bitch" and that is how we got new sewing machine models.


Hahaha. Wrahmsisms...


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Because Bach needed Vivaldi to become Bach, and Vivaldi was already Vivaldi when Bach happened.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Around 1710, Vivaldi was already a well-known composer and had quite a substantial amount of instrumental works printed and published. Amsterdam (NL) was a city where many of these printed works from all around Europe were sold. Young prince Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar was studying in Utrecht and most likely visited Amsterdam more than once. He bought Italian music and had it send to Weimar. Johann Ernst, being a fine and talented musician himself, and also Bach were very enthousiastic about Vivaldi's works and they both began to arrange the Red Priest's music for their own use/fun/study.

Bach's music though wasn't printed on such a large international scale, and certainly not during his Arnstadt-Mühlhausen-Weimar years (with the exception of 2 _Ratswahlkantaten_, but they were only published on a small regional/local scale, in limited editions).


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Bach admired Vivaldi's works and wanted to arrange them. I doubt Vivaldi had even heard of Bach.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

atsizat said:


> Why did Bach use Vivaldi's works? Since nobody asked this, I am asking. Vivaldi didn't use Bach's works but Bach used Vivaldi's works, why?
> 
> ....


Because Vivaldi's concertos were the most original then, highly influential, popular (that's why he wrote hundreds). Historical fact.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Because Vivaldi's concertos were the most original then, highly influential, popular (that's why he wrote hundreds). Historical fact.


Hundreds perhaps - but when they all sound sooo similar...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Seems like Bach had a lot of free time on his hands. He and I don't/didn't see eye to eye on Vivaldi.

Perhaps if Public Radio existed in 1725, Bach would have come around to my viewpoint.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

hpowders said:


> Seems like Bach had a lot of free time on his hands. He and I don't/didn't see eye to eye on Vivaldi.
> 
> Perhaps if Public Radio existed in 1725, Bach would have come around to my viewpoint.


We currently don't have a classical music radio station in Houston. Maybe that explains why I like listening to Vivaldi CDs?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Why did Bach use Vivaldi's works?

Perhaps Bach was simply over-doing it.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

I did not know Bach borrowed form Vivaldi. Very interesting ....


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

i like music said:


> I did not know Bach borrowed form Vivaldi. Very interesting ....


Here's one of Vivaldi's well-known concertos (RV 522), arranged by Bach for organ (BWV 593):


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Marc said:


> Here's one of Vivaldi's well-known concertos (RV 522), arranged by Bach for organ (BWV 593):


Thank you for sharing !


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

For whatever reason Vivaldi gets the Telemann treatment by a lot of listeners that don't really care for baroque today. Bach saw more in it, and studied it. Vivaldi is much more than _the_ baroque concerto master but it's a big part of his legacy. As a violinist he's probably my favorite to play. It must be how (some) pianists feel about Chopin or Schumann.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

bz3 said:


> For whatever reason Vivaldi gets the Telemann treatment by a lot of listeners that don't really care for baroque today. Bach saw more in it, and studied it. Vivaldi is much more than _the_ baroque concerto master but it's a big part of his legacy. As a violinist he's probably my favorite to play. It must be how (some) pianists feel about Chopin or Schumann.


Well I play the clarinet so I guess it's Weber for me. Gretchaninoff and Poulenc are also great for clarinet sonatas (pretty off-topic here).


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Vivaldi was a master of the concerto form. (In fact, it's possible that he basically invented the form of the Baroque concerto, but don't quote me on that!) I assume that Bach admired Vivaldi's solid grasp of the form - the way that Vivaldi handled the alternation between solo and orchestral passages, his use of sequences to create contrasting tonal sections, and his ability to generate rhythmic momentum through perpetual motion. All of these are things that Bach incorporated into his own concertos, adding his own stamp of profundity to Vivaldi's concerto techniques.


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