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Antonio Vivaldi Vivaldi was born in 1678, the son
of a violinist in the orchestra of
St. Mark’s in Venice. He initially
trained for the priesthood and
was ordained in 1703, but he soon
ceased to practice as a priest. His
break as a musician came when
he was appointed violin master
at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà.
Vivaldi’s first published
collection of concertos, L’estro
armonico (“Harmonic Inspiration”),
printed in 1711, made his name
internationally known, especially
in Germany, where the young J.S.
Bach was one of its admirers. He
went on to compose hundreds ofother concertos, as well as
some 50 operas and numerous
religious vocal works, sonatas,
and cantatas. His popularity
had declined by the late 1730s.
He died in Vienna in 1741,
while trying to restore his
fortunes, and was buried in
a pauper’s grave.and the parts played by the larger
ensemble, as if two voices were
being heard simultaneously within
the same piece. These were the
foundations upon which Vivaldi
built his body of work.
Slightly younger than Albinoni,
his fellow Venetian, Vivaldi wrote his
first known concertos when he was
in his mid-20s. Overall, during the
next 40 or so years, he would write
around 500 concertos, many of
which were published in collections
such as Il cimento dell’armonia e
dell’inventione. Others were sold
in manuscript—a form that the
commercially minded Vivaldi found
was more profitable. Of these
concertos, more than 200 were for
solo violin; Vivaldi himself was a
renowned and flamboyant violinist.
Others were for solo bassoon, cello,
flute, oboe, mandolin, and recorder.
Vivali wrote nearly 50 double
concertos (composed for two solo
instruments), along with other
variations, including one concerto
that included solo parts for 16
different instruments. Through
his astonishing oeuvre, Vivaldihelped to change the course of
musical history. Yet he was never
a revolutionary. Instead, he took
existing trends and modified them,
creating a new musical language
that exhilarated both musicians
and contemporary audiences. Many
of his borrowings were from opera,
another genre that found new life in
the Baroque period and with which
Vivaldi was heavily involved as a
composer. Following in Albinoni’s
footsteps, he took the basic fast-
slow-fast structure of the operatic
overture and transformed it into
the standard three-movement
structure of the concerto: a fast
first movement, filled with musical
action as solo and ensemble
sections alternate with one another,
followed by a slow, more meditative
middle movement, succeeded by
a renewed burst of activity in the
final movement.The ritornello
Within the fast movements, Vivaldi
borrowed the key structuring
device from opera—he used the
ritornello (“little return”), a refrainSee also: C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto in A major 120–121 ■ Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor 179 ■
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D for the Left Hand 266–267BAROQUE 1600 –1750
Other key works1711 L’estro armonico, Op. 3
1714 La stravaganza, Op. 4
1725 Il cimento dell’armonia e
dell’inventione, Op. 8
1727 La cetra, Op. 9or musical idea played, repeated,
and modified over the course of
the movement by the orchestra.
Typically in Vivaldi’s work,
a fast movement starts with the
orchestra making a full statement
of the ritornello. This gives way to a
solo section, in which the musician
merely receives background
accompaniment from the orchestra.
The full orchestra then returns,
restating part of the ritornello in
a new key. Ritornello and solo
sections then alternate, typically ❯❯He can compose a
concerto more quickly
than a copyist can write.
Charles de Brosses
French scholar and politicianUS_092-097_Vivaldi.indd 95 26/03/18 1:00 PM