# How I finally came into terms with Vivaldi



## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

You know, it's funny. I keep on coming back to composers that I've dismissed in the past and start raving over their music. It's really quite pathetic.










Or maybe it's just HOW the music is played. I think I've heard the most vigorous, in-your-face baroque recordings that I've have ever heard, tonight. Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante aren't tame, they rip their strings to give you it all. Put your headphones on full blast, and you're in for an experience of a lifetime. Take the twelve op. 8 concerti for instance, called the Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione, and they take it away. Here's some links from the segment commonly known as the "Four Seasons". But don't worry about it being too mundane; the band creates something completely fresh out of the old warhorse.

Spring: 




Here, the most cliche classical piece in history has been turned into something completely different. Biondi takes the music and brings drama to it, imitating the romantic styles of Berlioz, Mahler, and Wagner. However, what is important is that he still maintains the baroque antiquity that allows it to retain inner "spirituality", a characteristic of baroque music that I love so much, particularly in the music of Bach, Rameau, Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Pachelbel, Purcell, Telemann, Buxtehude, and Corelli.

Summer: 




This is the most frightening summer I've ever heard, no competition. They rip through the fiendish presto like it's nothing. The whole world is fleeting through an electrically charged vacuum, and the music pulsates like lightening!

Autumn: 




Winter: 




Winter has to be my favorite movement by far! The ominous strings in the beginning of the movement remind me of the nightmarish sounds one hears in the fifth movement of Berlioz's (fantastic) Symphonie Fantastique. Absolutely electrifying! The strings come in so matched and perfectly balanced to each other. And the harpsichord provides such a wonderful backdrop.

Now I can't say I 100% agree with Biondi's way of playing, especially in the slow middle movement. It is a bit eccentric, a little bit like pulsing waves, it really doesn't seem "firm" enough for my tastes. But it really works well for the energy of his band.

So for the last few minutes I have sounded like an idiot. I'm enjoying the Four Seasons! That's the sign of a newbie for you.

Rediscovery ain't anything to be ashamed of. And it's often the performers that provide the insight to the music of the composer that you are looking for. Recreating the music in the way you connect with!










Well, I went a bit further into Vivaldi's oeuvre of over 500 concerti. Most prominent among these are the L'estro Armonico concerti, op. 3. There are 12 of them featuring different combinations of instruments. As I listened, I realized that these works were truly groundbreaking in their composition, especially in their dissonance and experimentation with modal harmony/melody.

Starting with No. 1, of course, I made my way through these almost triumphant works. They speak joy even in the saddest harmonies and most crunching dissonances. In a way, they reminded me of Corelli's Concerti Grossi, though I like Vivaldi's much (way) more. They are just so well constructed and at the same time completely overwhelming in the emotion they convey.

Trevor Pinnock and his band are also famous for their Vivaldi recordings. His style can only be called more subtle, yet deeper. It has profundity in it that reminds one of nature's reconciliation with God. It just brings a chill of warmth through your entire body.

Instead of ripping the strings, Pinnock's band sings you a song of praise, showing you the beauty of each note and its relation among the other notes. His interpretation his intellectual in approach, but at the end it is able to produce both an emotional and spiritual response. It is wonderful.

The other band featured here is Marriner, a modern one. There's no harpsichord here, just plain strings. I have to say that Vivaldi's music played like this sounds too much like Vaughan Williams or Bax. It could pass for one of Delius's tone poems. That said, it is still beautiful, and Marriner use the subtlety of instruments such as these to bring out warmth from the music. Texturally, the music sounds much lighter than the HIP recording - and this is one of the advantages of HIP, to see the music more clearly by presenting in its original (designated) form.










So, what does this little discovery hold for me?

Well, a lot in fact. Vivaldi's oeuvre is both deep an diverse, and discovering and rediscovering his works is a process than will never come to an end. I really do have an affinity for Baroque music, something that I only partly knew until now. But I feel that Baroque music often takes me to a higher place than any other music besides Mozart (there are other exceptions) because the musical voices are so well-weaved and the music is so pure in its texture.

After getting a bit tired of my recent listening trend (Bach, Prokofiev, Liszt, Medtner, Schumann, Prokofiev again, Sibelius, Mahler, Mozart, Mozart again, Bartok, Berlioz, Bach again, Messiaen, Alkan, etc., etc.) It's wonderful to have found something a bit different for me to try. Bach and Vivaldi are two of my favorite composers - and I believe that the treasures they hold for me will never meet an end. Curiosity and fate will guide me to my destination.


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