Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque

According to author H.C. Robbins Landon, Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is the most recognizable or popular piece of classical music in the world. What of Chopin's "Funeral March," Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," Beethoven's "5th Symphony," "Fur Elise," or "Moonlight Sonata," Strauss' "Blue Danube" or Bizet's "Carmen"? JS Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" are also rivals. The inspiration behind the book, however, is not popularity but the obscurity of a man about which little had been known well into the 20th Century. Any reader expecting an academic miracle about the daily and personal routines of Vivaldi will be disappointed. The book can only produce so much.Other than the "Four Seasons," to which is devoted an entire musical chapter, Robbins Landon can confirm two things about Vivaldi's musical life that may come as a surprise: Vivaldi was a highly prolific yet largely panned opera composer. He boasted of 94 operas. Also, his religious works are on the contrary seminal. His operatic efforts were very dramatic behind the scenes, leading to a falling out with, in particular, Antonio Mauro. Players were not paid, parts were too difficult, and contracts came under great scrutiny. A tense exchange of letters follows dozens of pages of epistles during which Vivaldi constantly uses "Y.E." for "Your Excellency" while addressing Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio. The "only well documented episodes in Vivaldi's life" begin on page 130 and involve the Ferrara operas.There are 2 tellings of an interaction between Vivaldi and playwright Carlo Goldoni, starting on page 123. These both reflect a demanding and competitive craftsmanship of the time. Robbins Landon refers to one city in the book, I believe Vienna, as a "police state". Briefly, the book steps outside of music with the Giraud sisters, one likely to be an intimate, both possibly. On page 122, one of these sisters is the subject of chronyism charges, Anna, who could not sing well but looked the part.Page 100 calls attention to "La Senna Festaggiante," what the author calls "Vivaldi's most famous cantata". I looked it up on YouTube. A 4-month old video had 170 views. On page 87, he is also very complimentary of "Gloria Patri". I only noted Vivaldi's physical limitations on page 149, when he discusses the brief amount of time, about a year, when he was able to say Mass.

Antonio Vivaldi's life is hardly well documented: certainly not as well as Mozart's or Beethoven's. Even Bach's biographical details, scarcely thorough, are significantly greater than the "Red Priest's". Vivaldi's music and reputation nearly disappeared following his death, along with a substantial number of his manuscripts and the day-to-day details of his sui generis career. His resurrection as a composer and the dogged efforts of musicologists have provided at least the rough outlines of a biography. H. C. Robbins Landon, whom some consider Joseph Haydn's alter ego, has written an excellent biography of Vivaldi, managing to provide the details of his life in only 170 pages (including illustrations). Hardly a voluminous tome, there just isn't much day-to-day knowledge available, and what is known must often be teased out of official documents that are still coming to light.What Robbins Landon reveals about Vivaldi, especially in his few surviving letters to the nobility or the inevitable dedications to his various noble patrons, is painful. Cringing obsequiousness, fawning servility, even an occasional whining sycophancy when things go wrong and Vivaldi pleads to a patron for assistance, are all prominently displayed. This was coin of the realm for the era: the artist as flotsam in a hierarchical world. It is painful to witness, nevertheless. What is also revealed is a certain wolfishness on Vivaldi's part. His strange and lengthy menage with the attractive and moderately talented Giraud sisters, slightly unusual for a Priest. His peculiar working habits and relationships with other artists. His somewhat craven demeanor throughout his compositional career, finally inducing him to abandon Italy for Vienna at the end. This portrait of Vivaldi seems more enigmatic and his biography more of a palimpsest than the usual life story. Given the data, Robbins Landon does a superb job of at least revealing Vivaldi's milieu, picturing beautiful Venice during that era and outlining the splendid music this peculiar man created. For it is ultimately the music, and only the music, that contains the blood and heart and sinew of this marvelous composer.Mike Birman

Robbins Landon ist ein Könner der spannenden Darstellung. Mit diesem Band packt er den Leser gleich auf den ersten Seiten mit einem sehr persönlichen Erlebnis beim Schopf: Um das Jahr 1950 erscheint die erste Aufnahme der vier Jahreszeiten auf Platte und R.L. erlebt diese in einem New Yorker Plattenladen völlig verblüfft: Verblüfft ist zunächst auch der ungebildete Leser, bis er erfährt, dass Vivaldis Werke bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt praktisch vergessen waren und die Vier Jahrezeiten schlicht niemand kannte! Was muss das für ein Erlebnis gewesen sein. Nachvollziehbar ist auch R.L. Überlegung, dass Ausdrucksmusik von dieser Strahlkraft nicht zufällig entsteht, sondern auf einer interessanten künstlerischen Entwicklung des Komponisten beruhen muss, die noch auf viele weitere Schätze hoffen lässt.Und so geht es weiter: Vor dem faszinierten Leser wird das Tableau eines winterlichen Venedigs ausgebreitet, wo die Lagune gefroren ist und man sich zur Karnevalszeit auf dem Eis vergnügt. Händel hat eine Kommission für Aggrippina erhalten und bringt das Werk in Venedig zur Aufführung, wo schon eine andere Aggrippina läuft: die von Vivaldi nämlich.Man merkt dem Werk leider auch ein wenig an, dass es die Rezeption des Opernschaffens von Vivaldi (vgl. die Einspielungen im Opus 111) noch nicht ganz nachvollzogen hat. Denn die Opern werden als der vergleichsweise schwächste Schaffensbereich, die geistliche Musik aber als der stärkste Vivaldis darstellt. Was soll's! Die 200 Seiten schmelzen vor dem Leser förmlich dahin. Trotz neuerer Publikationen (Talbot und bald Romijn) behält das Werk seinen Stellenwert. Lesen!

This book tells as much as was known in the early nineties about Vivaldi's life. It's surprising to read that, during his lifetime, Vivaldi was best known for writing operas; his reputation waned when his operas became unfashionable, so that he remained relatively unknown until the mid twentieth century when his instrumental works became popular.

KInd of wordy but a good companion to the Red Priest . To get a feel for Vivaldi you should have both.Then there is couple of novels, Vivaldi's muse, and the Red Priest's Annina. Vivaldi was a prolific genius.