Classical Music | Ensemble Music

Recorded on 06/05/2008, uploaded on 10/10/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Harpsichord Concerto in A Major, RV 780  Antonio Vivaldi

Some have said that Antonio Vivaldi wrote the same concerto over 500 times—Vivaldi, without doubt, was a prolific composer! Nevertheless, he wrote in such a way that a high level of quality was maintained along with an astonishing sense of what various instruments could do. It might be said as well that Vivaldi's music is "sound dependant"—that is, dependent upon the sounds of instruments of his own time and the nuances and colors that only they can produce.

Vivaldi served most notably as the on-again, off-again director of the musical programs at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. This institution served as a home, school, artistic venue and potential marriage market, as it were, for young ladies who had no family ties, To call it an orphanage would only do partial justice to it. Throughout much of Europe, the mystique of many young ladies playing behind a screen (young ladies were not to be viewed, but only to be heard, mind you) had become something of a legend. The circumstances of performance at the Ospedale were said to have been as remarkable as the sheer quality of the music making. Almost all instruments of the early eighteenth century were eligible for concertos—Vivaldi's concertos include many combinations of instruments in cooperation as well as a plethora of solo concertos, always written with passionate brilliance.

While the transverse flute was not an unusual instrument for treatment in a concerto, it was a relatively recent invention, closely connected to the famous Hotteterre family in France. The flute, toward the end of the seventeenth century, had undergone two important changes, which are discussed in the "Period Ponderings" section of the notes. The instrument was thought to be plaintive and alluring—when used by Handel in his "Ode to St. Cecilia's Day," the words associated with it read as follows: "The soft, complaining flute, in dying notes discovers the woes of hopeless lovers." (John Dryden). Flutes and recorders existed side by side and were often used to evoke the songs of birds, hence, the title of Vivaldi's work, "Il gardellino," or "the goldfinch."

Vivaldi wrote concertos for almost every instrument, and these concertos all require the support of a keyboard instrument or some instrument that can play chords (lute, theorbo, etc.). Nevertheless, the harpsichord was viewed as a loyal supporter of an ensemble, but not necessarily as a soloist. In the keyboard concerto heard this evening, we come to the one exception to this rule—Vivaldi had composed a concerto for violin and violoncello that bears an inscription that reads: "ossia cembalo." We infer from these two words (otherwise harpsichord) that the violin part might be rendered by the keyboardist's right hand and that the left hand would commandeer the 'cello part. The American harpsichordist, Igor Kipnis, wrote a reconstruction of this concerto in the 1980s—Baroque Band uses Mr. Kipnis' string parts, and Mr. Schrader simply plays the two original solo string parts in the manner described above, with a very few modifications to accommodate the work for the harpsichord. In any event, it is a lovely thought to think that there is at least one keyboard concerto by Vivaldi!     David Schrader