VIVALDI: CONCERTI FOR DIVERSE INSTRUMENTS - Austrian Tonkunstler Orchestra (LINER NOTES)

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ANTONIO VIVALDI Concerto for Two Lutes and String Orchestra in G Major, RV 532 Concerto for Diverse Instruments and String Orchestra in C Major, RV 555 Concerto for Guitar and String Orchestra in D Major, RV 93 Concerto for Two Oboes, Two Clarinets and String Orchestra in C Major, RV 559

Karl SCHEIT, Lute and Guitar Christa GRUENMAYER, Lute - Rudolf KALUP, Violin Alfred DUTKA, Oboe - Ernst KRALL, Oboe Rolf EICHLER, Clarinet - Adolf SCHOEBINGER, Clarinet Hilde LANGFORT, harpsichord Theodore GUSCHLBAUER, harpsichord

AUSTRIAN TONKUNSTLER ORCHESTRA Edgar SEIPENBUSCH, conductor

ANTONIO VIVALDI Concerto For Two Lutes And String Orchestra In G Major, RV 532 1. Allegro 4:45 2. Andante 2:58 3. Allegro 4:12 Concerto For Diverse Instruments And String Orchestra In C Major, RV 555 (For Two Flutes, Oboe, English Horn, 2 Trumpets, 2 Violas, Violin And 2 Harpsichords) 1. Allegro 3:52 2. Largo A Piacimento 1:53 3. Allegro 4:57 Concerto For Guitar And String Orchestra In D Major, RV 93 1. Allegro Giusto 3:36 2. Largo 3:44 3. Allegro 2:22 Concerto For Two Oboes, Two Clarinets And String Orchestra In C Major, RV 559 1. Larghetto – Allegro 4:30 2. Largo 1:50 3. Allegro 4:57 Karl SCHEIT, Lute and Guitar Christa GRUENMAYER, 2nd Lute - Rudolf KALUP, Violin Alfred DUTKA, Oboe - Ernst KRALL, Oboe Rolf EICHLER, Clarinet - Adolf SCHOEBINGER, Clarinet Hilde LANGFORT, harpsichord - Theodore GUSCHLBAUER, harpsichord

AUSTRIAN TONKUNSTLER ORCHESTRA Edgar SEIPENBUSCH, conductor

It is curious how the names of composers are familiar to musicologists and musicians for hundreds of years solely on the basis of a few compositions, and it isn’t necessarily a case of the mediocre being justly forgotten. The outstanding example of unjust neglect, is, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach, the bulk of whose music was virtually unknown until the middle of the nineteenth century, when Mendelssohn and Schumann began to conduct and perform his works, and the Bach Society was formed to publish all his known compositions. Among other composers whose fame rests on perhaps a dozen compositions out of the hundreds they have written, one might name, for example, Liszt, Hummel and Cherubini – and Vivaldi.

It has only been in the past twenty years that the music of Vivaldi has become generally known, for the simple reason that only a fraction of it had been published. Even today, when most of his over five hundred instrumental works have been printed, only one or two of his thirty odd operas are in print, and only .

one of them has been recorded. From all accounts, it appears that Vivaldi lived for just two things, his religion and his music.

The playwright Carlo Goldoni tells of visiting Vivaldi and of finding him sur rounded by music with his breviary in his hand. When he tried to find the score to an opera he continued saying his prayers with occasional interruptions regarding the possible location of the missing score With virtually all of his instrumental compositions now in print, it has been possible to form some idea of the scope of Vivaldi’s creativity. The concerto, which was then in its infancy was of particular interest to him, since, among other reasons, it presented him with an opportunity for composing pieces designed to show off the technical abilities of many of his students at the Pietá, in Venice.

Until Vivaldi’s time the concerto was not quite the work for one or two solo instruments and orchestra we know today. The term ‘concerto’” was originally applied to vocal solo or choral

compositions which were to be performed as concerted music, that is, with other singers or instrumentalists. With the development of instrumental music the term gradually took on the meaning of music performed solely by instruments playing in concert, i.., together. The concerto of Vivaldi’s time could be a work for strings (similar to what we would call a symphony for strings, for example), or it could be a work for strings and winds playing in concert, or it could be a work for one or more solo instruments in which the role of the larger ensemble (the string orchestra) is distinctly secondary.

Vivaldi composed several concerti for orchestra in which different instruments are assigned concertante roles, that is, they are given occasional solo passages to play, but generally not the long virtuoso-type passages characteristic of the solo concerto. By his choice of instruments for these orchestral concerti, it is clear that Vivaldi was always ready to make the best of his resources, and to show his instruments off to their greatest advantage. Unlike the concerti grossi of

Corelli, which are only for strings, Vivaldi frequently writes for a small group of different instruments to play in contrast to the string orchestra. Nor does his orchestra, as does Corelli’s, reiterate passages played by the concertante instruments. In Vivaldi’s concerti, the orchestra generally plays an introduction and supplies short interludes between the solo passages, the themes being designed to contrast with those played by the various soloists. While it is true that there may be occasional displays of virtuoso technique in his orchestral concerti, Vivaldi’s main concern is to have his solo instruments play in concert (together) , and to this end he generally writes solo passages designed to show them off in various combinations with one another.

The Concerto in C for Diverse Instruments, RV 555, is characteristic of

this type of concerto for orchestra. By the skill with which he juxtaposes his solo instruments to each other, and in concert against the strings, he shows himself to have been one of the

great pioneers in experimenting with tonal sonorities in general, and with tone color in particular.

While he experimented with concerted music, Vivaldi also composed true concerti, one of the differences being the length and difficulty of the solo passages.

In general, the sonatas and concerti grossi before Vivaldi were of three to five movements, whereas most of Vivaldi’s concerti are in three movements. Vivaldi reduced the number of solo instruments in his concerti from three (as in the concerto grosso), to usually one or two.

The type of movements in a Vivaldi concerto, first and last technically brilliant with a lyrical slow movement, more or less established the form of most of the concerti to be composed up to the present.

The Concerto in C for Two Oboes, Two Clarinets and Strings, RV 559 is one of two such compositions by Vivaldi. Though they may not be the first concerti to feature solo clarinets, they certainly are one of the earliest such

works, and are a fine example of Vivaldi the experimenter in form and instrumentation. Since the technical resources of the clarinet had not as yet been fully explored, Vivaldi contents himself with contrasts in timbre (tone color), the difference in sound when played together, when played separately and when played individually and together in different octaves. This concerto has elements of the con certo grosso (number and types of movements, including the slow introduction, role of solo instruments to orchestra), as well as the more modern concerto (extended solo pas sages, nature of orchestral accompaniments). The slow movement of this concerto is unique, and for the time it was written, most daring, in that it is played just by the oboes and clarinets.

The modern concerto in three movements is well exemplified in Vivaldi’s Concerto in

G for Two Lutes and String Orchestra, RV 532, and the Concerto for Guitar and String Orchestra in D Major, RV 93. Ever willing to try something different regarding

instruments, Vivaldi wrote several concerti for one and two mandolins. The concerto performed on this recording by two lutes (originally for two mandolins) is one such composition. The guitar concerto (originally for lute) is another of Vivaldi’s concerti for what was already in his time a “lost cause’” instrumentally speaking. Both concerti are examples of the manner in which the composer solved the problem of writing music for unusual (in the orchestral sense) instruments in such a way as to show them off to their best advantage.

--DOUGLAS TOWNSEND

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