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Vivaldi

Voice of the Baroque

Vivaldi boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a scribe could copy one. Despite his prolificacy, The Four Seasons, and the majority of his already published work had fallen into obscurity by the time of his death in poverty in 1741. Most of his music-concertos, sonatas, operas, and sacral music-has been published only recently.

Very little has been written on Vivaldi for the nonspecialist, especially in English. Landon rediscovers the composer in this accessible and musically informed biography while presenting documentation of the musician’s life discovered after the Baroque revival in the 1930s. This book includes illustrations of eighteenth-century Venice and several newly translated letters, thoroughly evoking the style of the time and revealing some of the more personal aspects of Vivaldi’s life.

"Belongs on the shelf of every serious music student."—Kirkus

"Gives a good feel for Vivaldi’s life and times . . . and describes particularly well how Vivaldi has been revived."—Booklist

"Robbins Landon is marvelously entertaining, extravagantly learned."—The Independent





208 pages | 25 halftones, 6 line drawings | 6 x 9 | © 1996

Biography and Letters

Music: General Music

Table of Contents

Prologue The Rediscovery of Vivaldi
I: Priest and Music Master
Plates
II: A Career in Opera
III: ’L’Estro Armonico’
IV: Violin Wizard
V: ’The Four Seasons’
VI: Venice, Mantua and Rome
VII: The Church Music
VIII: Patrons, Travels and the Giraud Sisters
IX: Vivaldi and the Emperor Charles VI
X: Goldoni and Vivaldi
XI: Troubles in Ferrara
Plates
XII: The Last Journey: Death in Vienna
Epilogue The Durazzo Connection
Appendix I Vivaldi’s Opera Productions
Appendix II Vivaldian Ritornello Form
Appendix III Bach’s Arrangements
Appendix IV Vivaldi’s Published Collections
Appendix V Kolneder on the Uffenbach Cadenza
Appendix VI Vivaldi’s Church Music
Notes on the Text
Select Bibliography
Index
Sources of Illustrations

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