Vivaldi: II Pastor Fido Op. 13, Nos. 1- 6

Description

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)Il Pastor Fido, Op. 13Once virtually forgotten, Antonio Vivaldi now enjoys areputation that equals the international fame he enjoyed in his heyday. Born in Venice in1678, the son of a barber who was himself to win distinction as a violinist in the serviceof the great Gabrielis and Monteverdi at the basilica of San Marco, he studied for thepriesthood and was ordained in 1703. At the same time he established himself as aviolinist of remarkable ability. A later visitor to Venice described his playing in theopera-house in 1715, his use of high positions so that his fingers almost touched thebridge of the violin, leaving little room for the bow, and his contrapuntal cadenza, afugue played at great speed. The experience, the observer added, was too artificial to beenjoyable. Nevertheless Vivaldi was among the most famous virtuosi of the day, as well asbeing a prolific composer of music that won wide favour at home and abroad and exercised afar-reaching influence on the music of others. For this reason his name became a guaranteeof quality, particularly after the great success of The Four Seasons. Il Pastor Fido, one of themost popular works attributed to Vivaldi, is of doubtful authorship, although it containsidentifiable borrowings from Vivaldi and contemporary Italian composers. Not unnaturally,no manuscript of the six sonatas survives, and modern editions are derived from twosurviving copies printed in Paris in 1737, with the title "Il Pastor Fido", Sonates pour la Musette, Viele, FI??te. Hautbois, Violon Avecla Basse Continue dei Sig' Antonio Vivaldi opera XIII. The edition is dated17th April 1737 and the surviving copies are in the Bavarian State Library and in thelibrary at Arles. Doubt is cast on the authenticity of the six sonatas, whatever theirmerits, by the suggested instrumentation, which includes the fashionable French musette(shepherd bagpipe) and vielle (hurdy-gurdy), instruments now obsolete, at least in musicof this kind. The publication, by Jean-Noel Marchand, a French musician, was part of theattempt to profit from the popularity of Italian music, without infringing the royalmonopoly of publication granted to others, notably, in this case, to the Le Clercbrothers. A plausible case has been made for Nicolas Chedeville as the composer of Il Pastor Fido, a musician to whom the work wasattributed in a document of 1749. The case for Chedeville must rest chiefly on hispre-eminence as a composer for the musette and the hurdy-gurdy (vielle a roue). He wasdescribed in contemporary sources as the master of the musette for the ladies of France. Whatever their authorship, the sonatas of Il Pastor Fido contain attractive music, withvaried dance movements. In particular the fourth sonata contains a typical Pastorale, aversion of the Siciliana generally associated with shepherds, whether at Bethlehem orelsewhere, here with an added solo cello. The final sonata, the only one of the set in aminor key, contains a fugue wit