IL CIMENTO DELL'ARMONIA E DELL'INVENTIONE OP. VIII

Twelve concertos for violin and strings composed by Antonio Vivaldi between 1723 and 1725. Let's start with the truly beautiful title which highlights Vivaldi's desire to compose harmonious melodies but also to experiment with new compositional paths.

Inside we find in the first four concerts "The Four Seasons" which are among the best known pieces of music in the classical repertoire.

As often happens when there are very famous songs, the risk is that they will be overshadowed by the others which are absolutely no less and deserve to be listened to in the same way. Not only is it better not to snub "The Four Seasons" either, which it is true we listen to them often but in shreds for the use and consumption of those who transmit them but not of those who receive them.

It is therefore better to take a step back and listen to the concerts carefully in the appropriate version proposed by I VIRTUOSI ITALIANI.

The Cetra Op. IX

“LA CETRA” Opera 9 is a collection of twelve concerts composed by Antonio Vivaldi. In the original heading the dedication contains the following text: «La Cetra. Concertos for 3 violins, viola, cello and organ. Composed of DA Vivaldi Master of the Pio Ospitale of the city of Venice and Master of the Chapel of the Chamber of SAS Mr. Prince Philippe Landgrave of Hesse Darmistadt".

The collection consisting of 11 violin concertos and a concerto for 2 violins, strings and continuous bass was published in 1727 and dedicated to Emperor Charles VI of Austria. In September 1728 Vivaldi met the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI in or around Trieste where the emperor was supervising the construction of a new port. Carlo was a great admirer of Vivaldi and gave him a knighthood and a gold chain with a medallion and invited him to visit Vienna. In turn, Vivaldi gave the emperor a manuscript with a collection of concerts entitled “La Cetra”. It is probably no coincidence that the composer used the same title for the Twelve Violin Concertos Op. 9 “La Cetra” which he had published a year earlier for Le Cène in Amsterdam with a dedication to the Emperor. According to Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot, the lyre symbolized the Habsburgs' great love for music. Previously, in 1673, Giovanni Legrenzi had dedicated a first anthology to the then Emperor Leopold I - also entitled La Cetra. Talbot also considered the use of scordatura in the violin part. The practice of scordatura was a popular tradition in Austria and Bohemia as we know from the violin music of Biber and Schmelzer. Regarding the singular meeting between Emperor Charles and Vivaldi in Trieste in 1728, Abbot Conti writes: «The emperor spoke for a long time about music with Vivaldi. It is said that he told him more in two weeks than his ministers did in two years."

THE EXTRAVAGANZA, OP. IV

“LA STRAVAGANZA” is the title of a collection of twelve concerts composed by Antonio Vivaldi between 1712 and 1713 published for the first time in 1716 by Estienne Roger in Amsterdam as opera 4 and dedicated to a Venetian nobleman Vettor Delfino. In the original heading the dedication contains the following text: "Concerts consecrated to His Excellency Mr. Vettor Delfino, Venetian nobleman by Don Antonio Vivaldi, Violin Musician and Concert Master of the Pio Ospitale della Pietà of Venetia".

These are violin concertos although occasionally a second solo instrument such as a second violin and/or solo cello intervenes. The collection has the same structure as the other two which gave a fundamental imprint to Vivaldi's production. These are the very famous “Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione” Opera 8 and “L'Estro Armonico” Opera 3, both more famous than the present opera). As in the other two collections, each of the twelve concerts of the Stravaganza lasts about ten minutes.

THE HARMONIC FLAVOR Op. III

“L'ESTRO ARMONICO” is a collection of twelve opera 3 concerts by Antonio Vivaldi. The instrumentation is a string orchestra and a solo violin in 4 concerts, 2 solo violins in another 4 (2 of these also with the cello) and another 4 concerts for 4 solo violins (also in this case 2 concerts also with the cello). The title of the work is an oxymoron that aims to highlight the search for the perfect point of balance between two opposing needs: on the one hand the creativity that is the pure imagination that is unleashed in total freedom and on the other the strict mathematical constraints dictated by the rules of harmony.

These concerts had a resounding success throughout Europe and thanks to them the "Red Priest" was the most renowned composer for a few years. They marked the transition from the concerto Grosso to the solo concerto. The musicologist Alfred Einstein wrote about a passage in the third movement of concert number 8: "it is as if in a baroque hall doors and windows suddenly opened wide and you breathed a breath of fresh air". Vivaldian scholar Michael Talbot went so far as to claim that these works are “perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental music to appear in the entire eighteenth century.”

Opera 3 was published in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger presumably in 1711. Roger in fact did not include the publication date but only an order number and also recycled the numbers of out-of-print works as seems to have also happened to Estro Armonico. Its release was publicized with an advert in London's The Post Man. The work was republished unauthorizedly by John Walsh in London and Paris under the unlikely title “Les Troarmonico”.