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Overview
Vivaldi boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a scribe could copy one. Despite his prolificacy, The Four Seasons, and the majority of his already published work had fallen into obscurity by the time of his death in poverty in 1741. Most of his music--concertos, sonatas, operas, and sacral music--has been published only recently.Very little has been written on Vivaldi for the nonspecialist, especially in English. Landon rediscovers the composer in this accessible and musically informed biography while presenting documentation of the musician's life discovered after the Baroque revival in the 1930s. This book includes illustrations of eighteenth-century Venice and several newly translated letters, thoroughly evoking the style of the time and revealing some of the more personal aspects of Vivaldi's life.
H. C. Robbins Landon is an honorary Professorial Fellow of University College, Cardiff. His many works include Haydn: Chronicle and Works and Mozart and Vienna.
Editorials
Library Journal
If Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741) were living today, he would be comfortably fixed through royalties from recordings and other performances of his The Four Seasons. The ``red priest,'' so-called for his red hair, spent many years in an insecure position as music master for a charitable school. Eventually, Vivaldi moved on to concentrate primarily on opera composition and production, but his financial demands and questionable relationship with the prima donna Anna Giraud stymied his efforts. In this compact yet illuminating book, Landon explores why Vivaldi's music, with the exception of The Four Seasons and the second Gloria in D, has been largely ignored. The inclusion of newly discovered correspondence and other documents pertaining to Vivaldi and his music is the most significant aspect of this book. Landon contemporizes the life and contributions of Vivaldi in a succinct and attractive style. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-- Kathleen Spark man, Baylor Univ., Waco, Tex.John Shreffler
Vivaldi (1678-1741) is one of the most famous baroque composers, his "Four Seasons" among the best-known classical pieces, maybe the single most popular one ever written. Yet he was a forgotten man until after World War II and has been revived only by means of concerted effort and only partially. Noted Haydn scholar Landon here explores Vivaldi's rise and fall and examines his full musical output. Vivaldi lived most of his life in Venice, where he combined a career as a priest attached to a girls' orphanage with another as a prodigiously productive composer. He wrote hundreds of concerti, many operas, and a substantial body of church music that Landon believes is the most important part of his output and treats in some detail. Landon also describes how Vivaldi wrote so many instrumental works (mostly for ready cash) and elaborates on how Vivaldi selected the scores he considered worth publishing. He gives a good feel for Vivaldi's life and times in very short space, usefully lists the works in appendixes, and describes particularly well how Vivaldi has been revived. Although somewhat scholarly, Landon's accounting is readable and generous in insight.Book Details
Published
October 18, 1993
Publisher
[London] : Thames and Hudson, c1993.
Pages
1
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780500015766