Vivaldi: Bassoon Concertos, Vol. 2

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Cat No: 8555938

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Release Date: 12 January 2004

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313593828

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: VIVALDI

Description
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)Complete Bassoon Concertos Volume 2: RV 467, 475, 486, 488, 501, 504Known in his native Venice as the red priest, from theinherited colour of his hair, Antonio Vivaldi was born in1678, the son of a barber who later served as a violinistat the great Basilica of St Mark. Vivaldi studied for thepriesthood and was ordained in 1703. At the same timehe won a reputation for himself as a violinist ofphenomenal ability and was appointed violin-master atthe Ospedale della Piet?á. This last was one of four suchcharitable institutions, established for the education oforphan, indigent or illegitimate girls and boasting aparticularly fine musical tradition. Here the girls weretrained in music, some of the more talented continuingto serve there as assistant teachers, earning the dowrynecessary for marriage. Vivaldi's association with thePiet?á continued intermittently throughout his life, from1723 under a contract that provided for the compositionof two new concertos every month. At the same time heenjoyed a connection with the theatre, as the composerof some fifty operas, director and manager. He finallyleft Venice in 1741, travelling to Vienna, where thereseemed some possibility of furthering his career underimperial patronage, or perhaps with the idea oftravelling on to the court at Dresden, where his pupilPisendel was working. He died in Vienna a few weeksafter his arrival in the city, in relative poverty. At onetime he had been worth 50,000 ducats a year, it seemed,but now had little to show for it, as he arranged for thesale of some of the music he had brought with him.Visitors to Venice had borne witness to Vivaldi'sprowess as a violinist, although some found hisperformance more remarkable than pleasurable. Hecertainly explored the full possibilities of theinstrument, while perfecting the newly developing formof the Italian solo concerto. He left nearly five hundredconcertos. Many of these were for the violin, but therewere others for a variety of solo instruments or forgroups of instruments. He claimed to be able tocomposer a new work quicker than a copyist could writeit out, and he clearly coupled immense facility with aremarkable capacity for variety within the confines ofthe three-movement form, with its faster outermovements framing a central slow movement.The girls at the Piet?á had a wide variety ofinstruments available to them, in addition to the usualstrings and keyboard instruments of the basic orchestra.These included the bassoon, for which Vivaldi wrote 39concertos, two of which are seemingly incomplete. Thereason for such a number of concertos for a relativelyunusual solo instrument is not known, and the fact thatone concerto is inscribed to Count Morzin, a patron ofVivaldi from Bohemia and a cousin of Haydn's earlypatron, and another to a musician in Venice, GioseppinoBiancardi, reveals little, although it has been suggestedthat Biancardi represented an earlier tradition ofbassoon playing, as a master of its prede
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