Vivaldi's Venice Musicological Notes
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SERIES 01 SERIES 01 Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice DATES ARTISTS Sydney City Recital Hall Xavier de Maistre (France) harp Wednesday 26 February 7:00 PM Paul Dyer AO Artistic Director Friday 28 February 7:00 PM Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Saturday 29 February 2:00 PM (Matinee) Saturday 29 February 7:00 PM PROGRAM Wednesday 11 March 7:00 PM Vivaldi Sinfonia in C major from L’Olimpiade, RV 725 Friday 13 March 7:00 PM i Allegro ii Adagio iii Allegro Brisbane Queensland Performing Arts Centre Vivaldi Concerto in D major, RV 93 Tuesday 3 March 7:30 PM i Allegro giusto ii Largo iii Allegro Melbourne Melbourne Recital Centre Parish Alvars La Mandoline, Op. 84 Thursday 5 March 7:00 PM Gregori* Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 2 No. 2 Saturday 7 March 7:00 PM i Grave ii Allegro iii Largo iv Allegro Sunday 8 March 5:00 PM Marcello Concerto in D minor, S D935 Concert duration approximately 100 minutes, including one interval. i Andante e spiccato ii Adagio iii Presto Please note concert duration is approximate only and is subject to change. Interval We kindly request that you switch off all electronic devices prior to the performance. Vivaldi Concerto in G major, RV 310, Op. 3 No. 3 i Allegro ii Largo iii Allegro This concert will be recorded for delayed broadcast on ABC Classic. Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio in G minor CHAIRMAN’S 11 Pescetti Sonata in C minor Proudly supporting our guest artists. i Allegro ma non presto ii Moderato iii Presto Vivaldi L’inverno, Concerto in F minor, RV 297, Op. 8 No. 4 i Allegro non molto ii Largo iii Allegro * Denotes Australian première 2 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 3 SHAUN LEE-CHEN 30 APR – 15 MAY 16–31 JUL CONCERTMASTER Mozart’s Bach’s Season Clarinet Violin Mozart’s bright and achingly beautiful Thrilling German Baroque violinist 2020 basset clarinet concerto performed on Jonas Zschenderlein joins Brandenburg the rare and richly voiced instrument string soloists to perform concertos, of the period. sonatas and a suite by Bach. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mozart Concerto for oboe in C major, K 314 Bach Concerto for violin in E major, BWV 1042 The W.F. Bach Adagio e Fuga, F 65 Bach Concerto for three violins in D major, Mozart Concerto for basset clarinet in BWV 1064R A major, K 622 Bach Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, brilliant BWV 1068 2–19 SEP 22 OCT – 6 NOV colours Notre- Ottoman of Dame Baroque The rich musical tradition of Notre-Dame The mesmerising Whirling Dervishes told in a theatrical concert experience are steeped in mystique and will return entwining music for orchestra and choir from Turkey to dazzle in Paul Dyer’s Baroque with spoken word and song. musical meditation. PROGRAM PROGRAM Featuring music by French composers A pasticcio featuring Allegri, Boccherini, Campra, Lully, Rameau, Rebel and more. Lully, Marais, Telemann, and traditional music from Turkey. 5–16 DEC Noël! Noël! Gather your family and friends together this Christmas and spend a joyous evening JOIN THE BRANDENBURG FAMILY TODAY sharing rare carols, medieval hymns and ADULT SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES START FROM $181 a cheeky musical surprise. PROGRAM Filled with timeless carols including Call 1300 782 856 or visit O Come All Ye Faithful, Stille Nacht and brandenburg.com.au/season2020 many musical surprises PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice DISCOVER OUR PODCAST Tales of Baroque Episode Five – Life, and Harps, in Baroque Venice With Xavier de Maistre returning to woo audiences in Vivaldi’s Venice, Dr Alan Maddox also returns to share the microphone with Hugh Ronzani. Together they take a look at life, and harps, in Venice during the affluence of the Baroque period ALAN MADDOX HUGH RONZANI Tales of Baroque will be released in our Keynotes e-Newsletter every six weeks. Sign up at brandenburg.com.au/keynotes PHOTO CREDIT: Dr Alan Maddox appears courtesy of The University of Sydney, STEVEN GODBEE Sydney Conservatorium of Music. VIVALDI’S VENICE 19 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice From the twelfth to the sixteenth been taken aback by the sight of many Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, RV 93 century Venice had been one of the people wearing masks. Mask-wearing Allegro giusto SINFONIA IN C MAJOR FROM great trading centres of Europe, but was a centuries-old tradition, regulated Largo L’OLIMPIADE, RV 725 by the eighteenth century its main by law. In the early eighteenth century Allegro Allegro trade was culture. Tourists were drawn masks could be worn for six months of Adagio Vivaldi was taught violin by his father, from all over Europe to see the city’s the year, and nobles had to wear masks Allegro who played in the orchestra at the art treasures, majestic churches and at state ceremonies and public events, Basilica of San Marco and was also grand palazzos, to hear the magnificent and at the theatre. Vivaldi was one of the most successful a barber and wig-maker. Vivaldi was displays of sound and pageantry at opera composers in Italy in the first Much of the best instrumental and ordained as a priest in 1703, and known public festivals, and to attend the decades of the eighteenth century. choral music could be heard at the thereafter as the Red Priest, probably church services which contained His opera-composing career covered four ospedali, charitable institutions because of the colour of his hair. He was so much music they were more like almost thirty years, and he spent long which cared for orphans and destitute not particularly pious: the priesthood concerts than religious ceremonies. periods travelling throughout Italy children, and which each maintained was an accepted career path in Italy About 30,000 foreigners visited Venice staging his own operas. Like Handel, all-female orchestras and choirs especially for someone who was keen every year, rowed in a gondola four Vivaldi was very entrepreneurial. whose standard was equal to anything to improve their social standing. After a kilometres across the lagoon, to the one could hear anywhere in Europe. L’Olimpiade dates from 1734, year he gave up saying mass, claiming one hundred and eighteen islands Venetian composers were at the composed for the carnival season a debilitating chest complaint: ‘I almost which make up the city. (The connecting cutting edge of the new Italian style, at the Teatro Sant’ Angelo in Venice, always remain at home and go out only bridge was only built in 1933). Many at once impassioned and lyrical. when Vivaldi was impresario of in a gondola or carriage, since my chest visitors hired guides to accompany Chief among them was Antonio Vivaldi, the theatre. This sinfonia, or short ailment prevents me from walking.’ It them through the maze of alleys, canals who revolutionised the concerto and symphony, functioned as the overture. did not prevent him from maintaining and bridges, and to protect them from changed the direction of instrumental In this period the music of the overture a unique level of virtuosity on the violin, armed bands of thieves and assassins music for generations to come. did not directly relate to that of the or from travelling throughout Italy, who roamed the city at night. Time was opera to follow but set the mood more mounting his many operas to great different in Venice: the new year began generally. Vivaldi builds excitement acclaim. It also did not prevent him from on the 1st of March, so travellers might from the beginning with a typically working for the Pietà, most famous of leave France or Germany in January vigorous first movement with its rushing the Venetian ospedali, where he was 1723 but find themselves back in 1722 semiquavers and signature rapid octave a violin teacher and then music director when they arrived. For the Venetians leaps, which struck his contemporaries on and off for much of his working life, (along with most of Italy) the first hour as thrillingly innovative. A lyrical second and for whom he wrote most of his over of the day was the hour after the sun movement leads to the typical dance- five hundred concertos. In 1723 the set – so midnight could be 4 o’clock, like third movement, which reminded governors contracted him to compose or 8 o’clock, depending on whether it the audience that the opera would, as two concertos a month, even when he was summer or winter. Unsuspecting usual, have a happy ending. was away from Venice, ‘in order to keep travellers from English-speaking the … ensemble in as high repute as it countries would have been further has reached up to the present’. bamboozled by the use of the twenty- four-hour clock, and all would have Vivaldi probably wrote this particular concerto in 1730. He and his father had 20 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 21 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice left Venice at the end of 1729 to travel Elias Parish Alvars (1808-1849) a necessity for modern orchestral an arpeggiated accompaniment, was to Vienna, where his new opera Argippo music. In 1842 Parish Alvars acquired known as the ‘three-handed technique’. LA MANDOLINE, OP. 84 was being performed, and then on to the latest in double-action harps, the This term was also used to describe Prague. While they were in Prague it ‘Gothic’ model, larger, more strongly a technique required to play piano is likely that Count Johann Joseph von constructed, and with more strings compositions in this period and for the Wrtby, the royal governor of Bohemia, This man is a magician.