Spring Symphonies No 74: Vivaldi - Symphony in G minor, RV 157

Vivaldi might be considered a one-hit-wonder status to the casual listener, but he wrote a huge amount of music in different styles and genres.  The deep joy in Vivaldi's work is evident in this tiny symphony and it's worthy of inclusion in this survey for its elan and wit.

I suspect many classical music fans know hardly anything about Vivaldi and probably most know only one "piece" of music by him.  The Four Seasons by Vivaldi was first recorded in the 1920s and has become a rite of passage for aspiring virtuoso violinists. The Four Seasons is a set four concerti for violin and string orchestra published with descriptive sonnets, also by Vivaldi, as part of a larger set of twelve pieces called - Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest between Harmony and Invention).  It has developed a reputation all of it's own - probably because it's easy to follow - one of the first pieces of programme music (the music matches the narrative of the sonnets).

But there was much more to this composer than this well known example.

When the RV (Ryom Verzeichnis) catalogue of Vivaldi's works was drawn up in the 1970s, it illustrated the sheer number and variety of his works known.  Reading it now is still a bit of a shock, more so because we know it is a substantial under-estimate of his output - there are so many missing pieces including around half of his operas. There’s a lot we don’t know about Vivaldi but it is clear with his regular output of pieces for his employer, his prodigious sets of concerti published in his lifetime and the commercial success of his operas - he was a man in demand. Some of the music is grand and some very small scale - it was composed in different contexts to meet very different demands from his audiences.  But he was a talented and cosmopolitan composer, known across Europe.  It is good to see some of his more obscure works seeing the light of day now.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on 4 March 1678 in Venice and baptised that same day - this was unusual practice. It usually meant the baby was unlikely to survive. Vivaldi lived a full life but was plagued by an asthma-like breathing problem throughout his life. Given his later talent it is presumed he learnt the violin at an early age. Professionally, he was trained and ordained (in 1703) as a priest in Venice and he remained as a member of the priesthood for the rest of his life.  His first job was master of the violin in an orphanage, Ospedale della Pietà. The list of instruments in the hospital inventory in 1790 give us a hint of the kind of music making that was going on there including over twenty violins, six violas, two viola d’amore, mandolins, lutes, four horns , flutes and six spinets. Vivaldi stayed at the orphanage for 30 years writing under contract 2 concerti a month for which he was paid two sequin which is 7g of gold - that’s around £60 per month on the value of gold today. He wrote a lot of concerti. He was prodigious in other genres too, leaving many sonatas, choral works and 46 operas. Later he branched out and travelled a great deal as his music became famous across Europe.  He died in Vienna in 28 July 1741, 9 years after Joseph Haydn was born.  His music was borrowed by others - most notably by J S Bach. I'm taking this work - which is nominally a concerto without soloist, to be a symphony and it is by far the earliest symphonist in this survey. I've stretched the definition in terms Vivaldi wouldn't have used - but to my mind it fits the bill as well as the work by Webern which gets the name.

The idea of a self standing instrumental piece for a band of players seems to have arisen out of opera. Many Italian operas - including those of Monteverdi - have Sinfonia to break up the drama. It is these pieces as discreet items which give us one route to what we now know of as a symphony. In Vivaldi’s case, there's another route to the symphonic effect, he wrote many concerti with no soloist which have a unified quality and variety we expect of a symphony.  The undated concerto RV157 is certainly one of those pieces. It has much in common with the string symphonies of the slightly later period.  Performances augment the string lines and ornamentation with harpsichord (marked in the score) or lute (which isn't, but was used at the time and adds a wonderful texture to the sound).  These concerti share that the dramatic sense from both the Concerto tradition (as we hear in The Four Seasons concerti so eloquently) and the opera overture, where the instrumental prelude had to be a compelling taster of the drama to come. So it has that same interplay and contrast that we hear in early Haydn and Mozart symphonies.

There is a wide variety of instrumentation in Vivaldi’s concerto output. Mostly we hear strings and woodwind instrumentalist, sometimes in pairings of the same instruments and sometimes a trumpet creeps in. But in this "symphonic" concerto all we have is a string orchestra - two bands of four violins, 2 violas and 2 Cellos and single double bass are combined with a harpsichord part - we don't know whether this is forced upon Vivaldi for lack or players or just a matter of what was appropriate for the commission. This might feel lightweight to us but there is much going on and in a short period.  The symphony played briskly lasts about five or six minutes - one tenth the duration of a Brahms symphony, but brevity should not be taken as a downside in my view.  There’s no set large scale format as one would get in a sonata form structure but there are certain techniques that recur. So if we put aside our usual expectations of a huge orchestra and a long symphony we get something different but special.

Worth noting that it’s a work where a beginner could follow the score - you can see the patterns of melodies moving across the page and what's happening beneath them.  The score which is available here (but if you download it, please contribute IMSLP is a wonderful resource) : http://imslp.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Strings_in_G_minor%2C_RV_157_(Vivaldi%2C_Antonio)

This is a symphony where the character arises from interplay, colour and repetition - like many a classical symphony.  The drama is more like a game of tag and there's more of it if you listen for it. Much of the material is repeated but no sections are. The structure is a model used by Mozart in the next generation: fast - slow - fast. The slow movement is just under 20 bars long but provides that dramatic and lyrical break. It’s marked Largo though I suspect that could set up a wide variety of expectations. The faster movements both marked Allegro are the opportunity for interplay between the string sections. The overlapping effects are sparkling when the notes are properly attacked.  The somewhat staid formalism of early recordings just doesn’t bring this out - and the speeds achieved nowadays bring both zest and a sniff of danger to proceedings.

One might think that there isn’t much for Vivaldi to play with in his small orchestra, limited options in terms of sound and dynamics compared to modern composers. As anyone who has heard his Four Seasons concerto will recall - it is amazing what he can do. First violins and second violins undergo this perpetual dialogue with repeats and echoes - there’s a add option of speed, something which has been better understood and exploited in performances in the last 40 years. The tension, textures and colours Vivaldi produces are vivid and enticing. The overwhelming combination of these effects is uplifting and invigorating.  A friend of mine recently commented that Vivaldi’s position in an orphanage probably meant his early music had to be lively and joyous. Imagine being gifted a new Vivaldi concerto or two every month led by the composer - what must that have been like? Do we do that now? Could we do that now? What is clear is that the sheer joy in Vivaldi’s music - especially the countless concerti is something to behold. It has an inner energy too which can be just as fervent as Liszt or Wagner. But his canvas is smaller and his means much more economical.

In my youth Vivaldi concerti on record could be very staid. Some managed a kind of cultured grandeur in that and at the most extreme the music becomes powerfully hypnotic. New approaches put many of those performances in the shade. But in the hands of great players Vivaldi has always been compelling from the point of view of allowing the soloist to show off their skills. We find the earliest performance at the Proms was a concerto for 4 violins in 1924 (where Sir Henry Wood conducted four female violinists) and Vivaldi’s violin concerti dominate the festival’s archive even in recent years - The Four Seasons didn’t appear at the proms until much later, 1984. Most importantly the colours in modern Vivaldi performance have significantly added to the appeal of the works and the appreciation and variety of performance.

It was easy for me to pick this symphony but it could have been any number where his invention, enthusiasm and economy forge an astonishing piece of musical drama. The movements are scarcely long enough to go through but it’s easy to draw out the compelling threads which make this “concerto” worth of inclusion.

There is beauty, drama and excitement in the symphony, it stands alongside all the other works in this survey in those regards. Listen with the ear of an orphan from Ospedale della Pietà, and the eyes of a child watching the magical skills of the master of violin leading a band in this glittering work and you might capture some of it’s essence. Lifting spirits and raising smiles are perfectly good qualities in any symphony, and one’s of which we seem to have lost sight.

Here’s the Venice Baroque orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjPpe1JzRBE