Vivaldi: Gloria, Rv 589 / Beatus Vir, Rv 597

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Cat No: 8550767

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099576727

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: VIVALDI

Description
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)Gloria in D, RV 589Beatus vir in C, RV 597Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice the son of a professional violinist.Although Vivaldi underwent training for the priesthood, it was as a musicianthat he evidently excelled: he began playing the violin at an early age and itis known that he deputized on occasion for his father who held a post asviolinist at St. Mark's. Despite his ordination to the priesthood in 1703,Vivaldi decided to pursue a musical career; his first appointment was that ofmaestro di violino at the Ospedale della Piet?á where he maintained a teachingpost on and off for much of his early life. It was here that the young composerproduced a great deal of his choral music, although the works featured here wereprobably not among thern since they are much more elaborate than anything thesingers at the Piet?á could have coped with.One of the most striking features of Vivaldi's style is his ability tofashion melodies out of even a cadential fragment, and this facility is nowherebetter illustrated than in the opening movement of the Gloria. The first figure,with its distinctive octave leaps, is at once rhythmically vital andharmonically stable and lends itself easily to sequential treatment. Typicallyfor a violinist perhaps, the composer often displays a tendency to leaveintricacy to the instruments and to employ the chorus homophonically, as here.The second choral movement, Et in terra pax, explores this idea further,while extending the harmonic range with a profusion of Neapolitan sixths andsome extraordinary modulations. Even more unorthodox is Laudamus te inthat the opening ritornello is a slightly uncomfortable seventeen bars long;Vivaldi here allows himself some florid vocal lines for the two soprano soloistsand uses chains of suspensions - a favourite device. The short homophonicsetting of the words Gratias agimus tibi gives way to a fugue of somedexterity, although it must be said that Vivaldi is at his best when dealingwith simpler forms: the following soprano aria with obbligato oboe is a case inpoint. Here a long melody is gracefully unfolded in the metre of a Siciliano,while the continuo line recalls the octave leaps of the first movement. Sequenceis again much in evidence in Domine Fili unigenite, the composerdisregarding convention by resolving suspensions in the violin parts by downwardleaps of a 7th. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei uses contrasting forces: the altosoloist, accompanied by continuo, has descending scalic lines which arepunctuated by chordal interjections from the choir and orchestra. Thepenitential section continues with both groups singing separate triple-timemovements, and the work concludes with a recapitulation of the opening for Quoniamtu solus Sanctus and a final fugal movement.Beatus vir is even more structurally cohesive than the Gloria: not onlydoes the opening music reappear for the Gloria Patri, but the phrase 'Beatus vir'becomes a refrain, being interpolated at strategic points in
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