7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 71729 Vivaldi stopped publishing his works, finding it more
profitable to sell them in manuscript to individual
purchasers.
In the 1730s Vivaldi’s career gradually declined. The
French traveler Charles de Brosses reported in 1739 with
regret that his music was no longer fashionable. Vivaldi’s
impresarial forays became increasingly marked by failure.
In 1740 he traveled to Vienna, but he fell ill and did not
live to attend the production there of his opera L’oracolo in
Messenia in 1742. The simplicity of his funeral on July 28,
1741, suggests that he died in considerable poverty.
Instrumental Music
Almost 500 concerti by Vivaldi survive. More than 300 are
concerti for a solo instrument with string orchestra and
continuo. Of these, approximately 230 are written for solo
violin, 40 for bassoon, 25 for cello, 15 for oboe, and 10 for
flute. There are also concerti for viola d’amore, recorder,
mandolin, and other instruments. Vivaldi’s remaining
concerti are either double concerti (including about 25
written for two violins), concerti grossi using three or
more soloists, concerti ripieni (string concerti without a
soloist), or chamber concerti for a group of instruments
without orchestra.
Vivaldi perfected the form of what would become the
Classical three-movement concerto. Indeed, he helped
establish the fast-slow-fast plan of the concerto’s three
movements. Perhaps more importantly, Vivaldi was the
first to employ regularly in his concerti the ritornello form,
in which recurrent restatements of a refrain alternate with
more episodic passages featuring a solo instrument.
Vivaldi’s bold juxtapositions of the refrains (ritornelli) and
the solo passages opened new possibilities for virtuosic
display by solo instrumentalists. The fast movements in