TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
9th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music
ABSTRACT
Vivaldi's Harmony and the Paradox of Historical Recognition
Bella Brover-Lubovsky
A common trend in Vivaldi's research has been to portray him as a forerunner
of future stylistic innovations, rather than to recognize the strength
of his affinity with a tradition of the past. Indeed, certain properties
of Vivaldi’s concerto style, such as its elevated dramatic pathos, crystallized
structural idiom, virtuoso interpretation of instruments, and bold thematic
and textural contrasts had been adopted and intensively developed by generations
of musicians in the course of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, he
had been unmercifully forgotten even during his life- time. Vivaldi's death
in Vienna, the heart of the new emerging instrumental style, was almost
entirely unnoticed by musical circles. What were the reasons for the decline
of Vivaldi's popularity and such a flagrant oblivion of the once "famous
Venetian"?
An analysis of Vivaldi's harmonic language could clarify this question
to a considerable extent. In recent research it has been described as sheerly
forward-looking and advanced. Leading Vivaldian scholars have noted “the
strength of tonal feeling in the modern sense of major-minor” (M. Pincherle),
and “novelty and unprecedented directness" of his harmony (M. Talbot).
On the other hand, Vivaldi’s younger contemporaries totally rejected
his harmonic style because of its "wildness and irregularity" (J. Hawkins),
"poor handling of basses" (C. Goldoni), " and the "extreme of unnatural
modulations" (Ch. Avison).
Thus, Vivaldi's harmonic ideolect requires to be discussed in special
terms. It combines and closely interweaves elements of the modern tonal
concept with former modal pitch organization.
The paper will concentrate on the curious links between pretonal harmonic
thinking and the major-minor tonality in the entire corpus of Vivaldi's
concertos.
Last updated on 3 April 2000 by Yo
Tomita