 | Vivaldi, Antonio - Violin Concerto in Bb Major for Violin & Piano RV 383 Op. 4 No. 1 Violin and Piano |
Vidéo :
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| Composer : | Vivaldi, Antonio (1678 - 1741) | ||||
| Instrumentation : | Violin and Piano | ||||
| Style : | Baroque | ||||
| Key : | B♭ major | ||||
| Arranger : Publisher : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||||
| Date : | 1716 | ||||
| Copyright : | Public Domain | ||||
| Added by magataganm, 15 Mar 2019 Although Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) had already accomplished himself as a composer of violin sonatas and of sacred music, nothing propelled his career more than his first set of concertos -- L'estro armonico (Op.3) -- which first appeared in 1711. Besides being widely popular with both musicians and audiences of the day, L'estro armonico had a significant impact on the development of the relatively new solo-concerto. The set's influence was felt all across Europe -- no less a figure than J.S. Bach transcribed six of the Op.3 concertos for keyboard. La Stravaganza (Op. 4) appeared shortly after, in around 1713, and was dedicated to Vettor Dolfin (the surname given in its Tuscan form, Delfino), a young Venetian noble to whom Vivaldi had taught the violin. While enormously successful in it's own right, this set of twelve concertos was a complete departure from Op.3. While the influence of the Corellian concerto grosso had been significant in L'estro armonico, in La Stravaganza Vivaldi severed himself completely from past traditions. The Op.4 set is characterized by harmonic daring, passage work bordering on the bizarre, and a new, uniquely flexible, solo-concerto "form" that would become so typical of Vivaldi. The originality and variety of material is also noteworthy; each work seems to systematically refute a different aspect of the traditional concerto, and even some standards of composition at the time. All this is not without its own sense of musical humor. However, the set also demonstrates the care the composer took over the selection and grouping of works destined for publication; i.e. grouping the concertos into pairs -- one major, one minor -- with an adjustment made to ensure that the whole set ends in major. The Op.4 concertos are the earliest examples of a theatri al conception of the solo concerto to be offered to international audiences of music lovers. This, even more than Vivaldi's daring writing for the solo violin, is the true significance of the word stravaganza in the title. Indeed, among Vivaldi's printed works, the road to the future is marked by the Stravaganza concerti rather than those of L'estro armonico. Vivaldi would never retrace his steps in the direction of Op.3, and the collections which followed Op.4 further develop the concept of the instrumental solo as outlined in Op.4. This Concerto in B-flat for violin, 4-part strings and continuo, RV 383a, is first in the Op.4 set. As Op.4 goes, this concerto begins relatively straight-forwardly. The first movement, Allegro, serves admirably to give La Stravaganza a lively start, but stays well with in the norms established later on in the set. The second movement, Largo, displays some extraordinarily beautiful writing for the violin during an extended solo, which in itself is noteworthy as it was not uncommon for "slow" movements of the period to consist of little more than a few punctuating chords. The final Allegro is, it seems, a joke on form... the "opening" tutti, though wonderfully written, is so long that it takes up a full two-thirds of the movement! By the time the violin solo finally arrives, it is as if the composer ran out of ideas -- the violin solo goes on quite a while simply playing chord progressions, never really introducing any melodic material. After an extended opening tutti and an extended violin solo, one might get the feeling as the second tutti passage arrives that this movement is going to go on for several more minutes, but here Vivaldi takes a proverbial left-turn. To extend the metaphor, he slams on the brakes with some skillfully placed diminished-seventh chords, and brings the entire concerto to a sudden, but efficient, end. Although originally scored for Violin and Strings (2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Bass & Continuo), I created this arrangement for Violin & Piano. Sheet central : | Concerto pour violon en si bémol majeur (3 sheet music) | | |||
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