Vivaldi: Gloria / Bach, J.S.: Magnificat

Regular: £11.49

Sale: £11.49
Regular

Out of Stock

Unit Price: per

Cat No: 8554056

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943405628

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: VIVALDI

Description
Antonio Vivaldi(1678-1741) Gloria in D, RV 589Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Magnificat in D, BWV 82Antonio 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 of maestrodi violino at the Ospedale della Piet?á where he maintained a teaching poston 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 herewere probably not among them since they are much more elaborate than anythingthe singers 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 firstfigure, 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 sopranosoloists and uses chains of suspensions - a favourite device. The shorthomophonic setting of the words Gratias agimus tibi gives way to a fugueof some dexterity, although it must be said that Vivaldi is at his best whendealing with simpler forms: the following soprano aria with obbligato oboe is acase in point. 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.Sequence is again much in evidence in Domine Fili unigenite, thecomposer disregarding convention by resolving suspensions in the violin partsby downward leaps of a Seventh. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei uses contrastingforces: the alto soloist, accompanied by continuo, has descending scalic lineswhich are punctuated 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.The career of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most illustrious of a prolificmusical family, falls neatly into three unequal parts. Born in 1685 inEisenach, from the age of ten Bach li
Tracklisting