Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741) is best known to modern audiences for his instrumental music. Like most composers of his time, Vivaldi composed in the formal medium of the sonata in his earliest publications (from 1703). His reputation was propelled by his concertos, the earliest of which appeared in 1711. This is still the genre with which he is most widely associated.

Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention) is a set of twelve concertos written by Antonio Vivaldi between 1723 and 1725 and published in 1725 as Op. 8. All are for violin solo, strings, and basso continuo. The first four concertos are usually known as The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni).

Vivaldi's most famous opus was published in Amsterdam by Michel Charles Le Cène in 1725. It is clear, though, that various portions of sundry works had been written earlier. What was perhaps new was the formalization of the scheme, complete with the texts of the sonnets with which they were coordinated, of the first four concertos--The Four Seasons. These works, and their cyclical organization, captured the imagination of many and led to a "Four Seasons" industry of arrangements performances that extends to the current day.

Unlike other opuses that postdated Vivaldi's move to Mantua, this one resumed the practice of dedicating the collection to a nobleman, in this case Venceslas, count of Morzin (also Morcin, spelled Marzin in the print itself). (Two concertos known only in manuscript, RV 449 and 496, were also dedicated to the count. He was Bohemian with townhouses in Prague and Vienna. He was an occasional patron of Venetian opera. Prague, the capital of Bohemia, was a thriving city was rapidly developing enterprises focused on opera and on the development of string music. One can see how poetic justice prevailed in this dedication: Bohemians not only loved music but were happy to master its component parts.

This opus was more popular in France than anywhere else. Parisian reprints issued from the presses of Madame Boivin (c. 1739, 1743, 1748). Manuscripts were widely circulated. Rearrangements of portions of the opus were opus also proliferated. In Dresden, the orchestration of some works was enriched by Johann Pisendel, who also elaborated some of the articulation.

In the works as a set, major keys predominate. Nos. 7, 9, AND 11 are known in alternative versions. The final of movement of Op. 8, No. 11 presents a particularly complex web of revisions to the alternation of tutti and solo.

Although this, the Concerto No. 5 in Eb Major, "La tempesta di mare" (RV 253) was originally scored for Violin and Strings (2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Bass & Continuo), I created this arrangement for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).