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Vivaldi and Rome: Observations and Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael Talbot
Michael Talbot*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

Vivaldi's indebtedness to Roman models in his formative years as a composer has generally been recognized, although the Roman link is often viewed simplistically and inaccurately as an apprenticeship, stylistically speaking, with Corelli. A more careful review of the evidence leads to the conclusion that the Corellian features in his first three published collections were acquired at second hand via a slightly older generation of Venetian composers (Gentili, Albinoni, Caldara) rather than through independent study of Corelli. Undeniably, the pioneering concertos of op. 3 (L'estro armonico, 1711) betray the strong influence of the Rome-based composer Giuseppe Valentini, whose Concerti grossi, op. 7, had been published the previous year in Bologna But the few manuscript works by Vivaldi that survive from this early period (notably the sonatas RV 60 and 779, and the concertos RV 402, 416 and 420) offer clear evidence that for ordinary purposes he remained as close as any of his Venetian contemporaries to the norms of the local tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 113 , Issue 1 , 1988 , pp. 28 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Royal Musical Association

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References

1 The conclusions stated in this paragraph were reached in my paper ‘Lingua romana in bocca veneziana Vivaldi, Corelli and the Roman School’, read to the Quarto Congresso Internazionale di Studî Corelliani (Fusignano, September 1986)Google Scholar

2 The present ownership of this letter is unknown A transcription of it appears in Federigo Stefani, Set lettere di Antonio Vivaldi veneziano, maestro compositore di musica della prima metà del secolo XVIII (Venice, 1871), 21-3Google Scholar

3 For instance, in a letter to Bentivogho of 23 November 1737 Vivaldi quotes the annual rent of his apartment as 200 ducats, whereas we know it from fiscal records to have been only 136 ducatsGoogle Scholar

4 Bonanni, Filippo, Gabinetto armonico (Rome, 1722), 106 ‘Un'altro modo si usa nel suonare il Salterio, il suono di cui riesce non meno suave, percotendosi le corde con due bachetti lunghe circa un palmo, e sottili, nel modo indicato nella figura, che raperesenta [sic] una povera fanciulla Tedesca, la quale nel tempo in cui scnvo si vede per le contrade di Roma; onde molti sono allettati ad apprendere l'arti di sonarlo, mentre è ugualmente facile, e dilettevole. Frequente è l'uso di tal'Istromento nella Germania’ Strangely enough, Vivaldi must have had considerable experience of a version of the same instrument in Venice, since the Pietà acquired a salterio in 1706 and another in 1709Google Scholar

5 Ryom, Peter, Les Manuscrits de Vivaldi (Copenhagen, 1977), 114-15.Google Scholar

6 The first violin line of the opening of this aria's ritornello is quoted in Talbot, Michael, Vivaldi (London, 1979), 106Google Scholar

7 Reproduced in Fabrizio Delia Seta, ‘Documenti mediti su Vivaldi a Roma’, Antonio Vivaldi Teatro musicale, cultura e società, ed Lorenzo Bianconi and Giovanni Morelli (Florence, 1982), 522-3Google Scholar

8 The literature referring to the ‘Manchester concerto partbooks’ is already extensive. The most detailed discussions, all by Paul Everett, are in ‘The Manchester Concerto Partbooks’ (Ph D. dissertation, University of Liverpool, 1984), 3 vols; ‘A Roman Concerto Repertory Ottobom's “What Not?’”, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 110 (1983-4), 62-78, ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester I’, Informazioni e studi vivaldiani, 5 (1984), 23-52; ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester II’, ibid, 6 (1985), 3-56; ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester III’, ibid, 7 (1986), 5-34 The manuscript volume of 12 violin sonatas by Vivaldi preserved in the same collection under the shelf-mark MS 624 1 Vw 81 provides further evidence of the composer's high standing with Ottoboni.Google Scholar

9 See the diagram in Everett, ‘A Roman Concerto Repertory’, 72Google Scholar

10 I am grateful to Reinhard Strohm for pointing out the relationship between the concerto and the aria, which explains the former's titleGoogle Scholar

11 An interesting parallel case occurs in a manuscript of the Sachsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden (Mus 2389-O-154, ohm Mus. 2-O-1,55), a score of RV 377 (op. 7 no 9) copied out by Pisendel in which Vivaldi's name, originally entered at the head of the score, has been erasedGoogle Scholar

12 Everett, ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester I’, deals in detail with the manuscripts of Le quattro stagioni It is interesting to see that the Manchester source attributes the authorship of the four accompanying sonetti dimostrativi to Vivaldi himselfGoogle Scholar

13 Ibid., 31-2.Google Scholar

14 Piperno, Franco, ‘“Anfione in Campidoglio” Presenza corelhana alle feste per i concorsi dell'Accademia del Disegno di San Luca’, Nuovissimi studi corelliani Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale (Fusignano, 4-7 settembre 1980), ed Sergio Durante and Pierluigi Petrobelli (Florence, 1982), 199Google Scholar

15 See Farup-Madsen, Inge, ‘Vivaldis anvendelse af fl⊘jteinstrumenter’ (dissertation, University of Copenhagen, 1974), 79Google Scholar

16 Everett, , ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester II’, 37-8Google Scholar

17 Everett, , ‘A Roman Concerto Repertory’, 67-8, and ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester III’, passimGoogle Scholar

18 Everett's dissertation and his articles ‘A Roman Concerto Repertory’ and ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester III’ all contain very detailed information on the Roman papers, rastrography and hands found in the Manchester concerto partbooks and other fragments of the Ottoboni collection in the same library There are many correspondences of paper, rastrography and handwriting between the manuscripts of Roman provenance in Manchester containing works by Vivaldi and others and those in Turin containing works by Vivaldi aloneGoogle Scholar

19 Everett, , ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester: II’. 33-8.Google Scholar

20 Giordano, 37, ff. 2-21. At some later point Vivaldi revised the instrumentation of this concerto, eliminating the clarinets and redistributing their material among the other parts; at the same time the lute disappeared from the instrumentation of the second movement. The revisions are indicated directly on the score. Unfortunately, the edition of RV 556 in the Opere strumentali series published by Ricordi (vol. liv) does not adopt either the original or the revised version consistently, so that an unsatisfactory hybrid version results.Google Scholar

21 Everett, , ‘The Manchester Concerto Partbooks’, 359-61 The repertory in Manchester to which the clarinet concertos belong, termed ‘F’ by Everett, contains an aria from Vivaldi's opera Farnace and features a copyist who also worked on the manuscript of Vivaldi's Nisi dominus, RV 608 (Foà 40, ff. 251-98). The ‘F’ repertory is of unknown provenance. See also Everett, ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester: III’, 6-7Google Scholar

22 Everett, , ‘Vivaldi Concerto Manuscripts in Manchester II’, 24.Google Scholar

23 Nemeitz, Joachim Christoph, Nachlese besonderer Nachrichten von Italien (Leipzig, 1726), i, 61; Carl Ludwig von Poellnitz, Lettres et mémoires … contenant les observations qu'il a faites dans ses voyages (3rd edn, Amsterdam, 1737), iv, 113, Johann Gottfried Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec (Leipzig, 1732), 37Google Scholar

24 In Ryom, Peter, Verzeichnis der Werke Antonio Vivaldis Kleine Ausgabe (2nd edn, Leipzig, 1979), 168, it is stated that the cadenza was evidently written for a concerto other than RV 562, possibly RV 212, this view is rejected in Ortrun Landmann, ‘Katalog der Dresdener Vivaldi-Handschriften und -Fruhdrucke’, Vivaldi-Studien. Referate des 3 Dresdner Vivaldi-Kolloquiums (Dresden, 1981), 148Google Scholar

25 Hiller, Johann Adam, Wöchentliche Nachrichten und Anmerkungen die Musik betreffend (Leipzig, 10 March 1767), 285.Google Scholar

26 In statements concerning paper-types and rastrography I have been fortunate to have access to information derived from Paul Everett's continuing research into the manuscript sources of Vivaldi's music Some of this information has been shared during our parallel activity as editors of Vivaldi solo motets for the Nuova edizione critica published by the Istituto italiano Antonio Vivaldi, while many other findings have been very generously communicated in private correspondence Naturally, I alone bear responsibility for any inaccuracies in these statements.Google Scholar

27 The second aria of Cur sagittas, which may be an afterthought or late addition, employs the same paper but a different rastrum spanning 185 2 mm This paper-rastrum combination is also found in the Turin autograph scores of the concertos RV 232 and 386.Google Scholar

28 See Talbot, Michael, ‘A Vivaldi Discovery at the Conservatorio “Benedetto Marcello”‘, Informazioni e studî vivaldiani, 3 (1982), 6-8.Google Scholar

29 It is likely that the original version of the Magnificat in G minor for undivided ensemble and without oboes - i.e the version termed by Ryom RV 610b - was composed for the Pietà during the period 1713-17 Certainly, the manuscript of a Vivaldi Magnificat once owned by Zelenka, who acquired it almost certainly during his Venetian sojourn of 1716-17, is listed in the Dresden musician's Inventarium (Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Bibl Arch. III Hb 787d) as ‘Magnificat a 4 C A T B Viol 2, Viola e Basso Contin.’ (no 48 under the rubric ‘Psalmi varn’); unfortunately, the manuscript itself did not apparently pass to the Katholische Hofkirche after Zelenka's death and is now lost (my acknowledgments to Wolfgang Reich for this information) By 1739, the year when the amended version RV 611 was sold to the Pietà, the work would probably have faded from memory, enabling RV 611 to be accepted into the repertory as a new composition It must be questioned whether the version RV 610 (for undivided ensemble but with oboes) ever existed As Ryom has pointed out (Les Manuscrits de Vivaldi, 429), there is no evidence in the autograph score that the instructions (‘P C’, etc) for assigning movements to the respective cori were later additionsGoogle Scholar

30 On the organization and personnel of Ottoboni's cappella see Giorgio Morelli, ‘Il cardinale Pietro Ottoboni e la cappella musicale di S Lorenzo in Damaso’, Strenna dei Romanisti, 45 (1984), 353-7.Google Scholar

31 Several instrumental works possess the same indications of movement length Whether these too form a separate group linked to the corresponding vocal works needs to be investigatedGoogle Scholar

32 The autograph scores of several sacred vocal works written by Porpora for the Pietà, the Ospedaletto and the Incurabili respectively are held by the British Library, London, these provide the ideal material for a comparative study of choral practice at the three institutions in the fourth and fifth decades of the eighteenth centuryGoogle Scholar

33 Settings from Italy of the Gloria, unlike those of the Kyrie and the Credo, seem almost always to have adopted the major mode during the eighteenth century, no doubt with the intention of reflecting the mood of the words A combination of a G minor Kyrie with a B♭ major Gloria would make an exact counterpart to Bach's B minor Kyrie and D major GloriaGoogle Scholar

34 The Concerto madrigalesco, RV 129, confirms the close relationship between Vivaldi's Kyrie and his Magnificat by borrowing material from bothGoogle Scholar