Gloria in D
RV589
- Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) |
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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi composed this Gloria
in Venice, probably in 1715, for the choir of the Ospedale della Pietà,
an orphanage for girls (or more probably a home, generously endowed by
the girls' "anonymous" fathers, for the illegitimate daughters of
Venetian noblemen and their mistresses). The Ospedale prided itself on
the quality of its musical education and the excellence of its choir and
orchestra. Vivaldi, a priest, music teacher and virtuoso violinist,
composed many sacred works for the Ospedale, where he spent most of his
career, as well as hundreds of instrumental concertos to be played by
the girls’ orchestra. This, his most famous choral piece, presents the
traditional Gloria from the Latin Mass in twelve varied cantata-like
sections. |
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The wonderfully sunny nature
of the Gloria, with its distinctive melodies and rhythms, is
characteristic of all of Vivaldi’s music, giving it an immediate and
universal appeal. The opening movement is a joyous chorus, with trumpet
and oboe obligato. The extensive orchestral introduction establishes two
simple motives, one of octave leaps, the orher a quicker, quaver -
semiquaver figure, that function as the ritornello. The choir enters in
chorale-like fashion, syllabically declaiming the text in regular
rhythms, contrasting with the orchestral ritornello, which contains most
of the melodic interest of the movement. |
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The B minor Et in terra pax is in nearly
every way a contrast to the first. It is in triple rather than duple
time, in a minor key, and rather slower. Its imitative and expressive
chromatic texture evokes the motets of the Renaissance era, the
so-called "stile antico". Laudamus te, a passionate duet for soprano and
mezzo-soprano, gives us some hint of the skill of Vivaldi’s young
singers. |
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Gratias agimus tibi is a very broad and
entirely homophonic prelude to a fugal allegro on propter magnam gloriam.
The Largo Domine Deus, Rex coelestis is in the form of duet between the
solo soprano and the solo violin, followed by the joyful F major Domine
Fili unigenite chorus in what Vivaldi and his contemporaries would have
regarded as the 'French style'. It is dominated by the dotted rhythms
characteristic of a French overture. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei features the
alto soloist, with the chorus providing an antiphonal response, qui
tollis peccata mundi, to each intercession. The bold harmonies of the
following section, Qui tollis, provide a refreshing change of tone
colour, and complement the intercessional alto aria, Qui sedes ad
dextera Patris. The string accompaniment contains recollections of the
opening movement, and prepares for the following movement, Quoniam tu
solus sanctus, which takes the shape of a brief reprise of the opening
movement’s broken octaves. |
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The powerful stile antico
double fugue on Cum Sancto Spiritu that ends the work is an arrangement
by Vivaldi of the ending of a Gloria per due chori composed in 1708 by
an older contemporary, the now forgotten Veronese composer Giovanni
Maria Ruggieri, whom Vivaldi seems to have held in high esteem, as he
used a second adaptation of this piece in another, lesser-known D Major
Gloria setting, RV 588. |
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Today Vivaldi is one of the
most popular of all composers, who during his lifetime enjoyed
considerable success and fortune, which he squandered through
extravagance, and when he died in Vienna he was buried in a pauper’s
grave. For two centuries after his death, the Gloria lay undiscovered
until the late 1920s, when it was found buried among a pile of forgotten
Vivaldi manuscripts. However, it was not performed until September 1939
in Siena in an edition by the composer Alfredo Casella. This was by no
means an authentic edition (he described it as an "elaborazione”), as he
embellished the original orchestration of trumpet, oboe, strings, and
continuo, while reducing the role of the continuo, and cut sections from
three movements. It was not until 1957 that the now familiar original
version was published and given its first performance at the First
Festival of Baroque Choral Music at Brooklyn College, NY. |
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Peter Carey
Royal Free Singers
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To those using these notes - You are more than welcome
to use all or part of these notes in your programme. If you do,
please would also ensure that I
am correctly credited as the author, by printing the full signature
shown at the end of the programme note. Thank you. |
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