Vivaldi, "L'Estro Armonico" - Concerto 10

Twelve concertos for string instruments

Antonio Vivaldi was born and lived most of his life in Venice. There he served for a long time, albeit intermittently, as a violin teacher and composer at the Pio Ospedale della Pietá, a residence for orphan girls who were provided with an education with special emphasis on musical instruction. Vivaldi's task was to compose music for the girls to play at religious ceremonies and festivities, often accompanied, or conducted, by Vivaldi himself.

But the continuity of the job was not assured. Notwithstanding the composer's genius, his tenure at the institution was periodically put to a vote. In 1709, shortly before the publication of L'Estro Armonico, Vivaldi found himself out of a job, dismissed by a few votes. It was the first of his many departures from, and subsequent returns to, the Ospedale.

L'estro armonico (like The Harmonic Inspiration) is a set of twelve concertos for string instruments, published in Amsterdam in 1711. It is the author's opus 3, the two previous ones being sonatas, so this is the first set of concertos to be published. Much later, in 1725, the collection Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione would appear, which contains the famous Four Seasons.

Its publication was not only the most celebrated event in Italian orchestral music of the first half of the 18th century but also the most important work in all European orchestral music. In the opinion of scholars, L'estro armonico took Corelli's solid concerto style and infused it with a luminosity, muscularity, and virtuosity that completely determined the future history of the genre.

The "rediscovery" of Vivaldi
The ensemble was suitable for various transcriptions. The earliest and most important are those made by Bach as part of a series of arrangements for keyboard and organ during his stay in Weimar in the 1710s. It is these transcriptions that will play a decisive role in the "rediscovery" of Vivaldi during the first half of the 20th century, which is almost a serendipity since musicologists were not so much interested in Vivaldi himself but rather in how to deepen their knowledge of Bach through his transcriptions.

Concerto No. 10, for four violins, strings (two violas and cello) and continuo

The tenth work in the collection is the Concerto in B minor, RV 580. A work in three movements for four violins plus orchestral ripieno (the tutti) of violins, violas, cello, and basso continuo. As in the other concertos, the Allegro alternates between continuo and ripieno. In the central movement, spiccato chords from the ripieno alternate with imitative arpeggios by the soloists (a central episode predictive of the Winter slow movement from The Four Seasons follows). The final allegro: a dancing theme in ternary compass signature of the ripieno alternating with sparkling sections by the four soloists.

Bach's transcription of this piece is his Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords, strings and continuo, BWV 1065.

Movimientos:
00:00  Allegro
04:28  Largo e spiccato (spiccato, indication for the strings, the bow should move along the strings discontinuously, in small jumps).
06:56  Allegro

The rendition is by the Karol Szymanowski Music School Orchestra, of Polonia, conducted from the keyboard by his conductor Marcin Grabosz.