Vivaldi’s German connection
A highlight for the pleasure-hungry traveller constituted the concerts at the Ospedale della Pietà, a foundation for orphaned girls. Here music was directed by Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), who introduced a new style of concerto that would take Europe by storm. Vivaldi’s concertos abound in visceral energy, whether in the physicality of the soloist playing fast and wild, the pulsing lines of the string band, or the harmonies driving to the next cadence. Yet such exhibitionist music was performed by young, cloistered girls who might be hidden behind grilles to protect their modesty. Foreigners found the Pietà mildly titillating, perhaps sensing something of the harem in it.
A piece probably heard at the Pietà was Vivaldi’s Oboe Concerto in F major RV455. Like most Vivaldi concertos, the outer movements have a polarity between the extravagant solo passages and the driving sequences of the orchestra. The middle movement, by contrast, seems to be suspended in time; it is scored without continuo and so lacks the constant pushing to the next cadence.
Among the northern visitors to Venice in 1716–17 was Friedrich August, Prince Elector of Saxony. The prince was enjoying a year of bachelor freedom in Italy before his dynastic marriage in 1719. But his Venetian trip also had a serious purpose: he was there to hire musicians for the opera-house his father was building in Dresden. Prince August was accompanied by a violin virtuoso from Dresden, Johann Georg Pisendel (1687–1755), who immediately made contact with Vivaldi and sought lessons with him.
Vivaldi’s Concerto in F major RV571 is one of the pieces Pisendel performed when in Venice. The concerto has larger forces than customary, notably the two horns. Vivaldi delights in confusing the listener about who are the soloists. In the first movement, sections for horns and oboes interrupt the initial tutti. Only with the entry of the solo violin do we get the exhibitionist writing we’ve been expecting, and even then the horns and oboes return later for little duos. The Largo is the only movement where Vivaldi brings out a single soloist, here the violin. When this concerto was played between the acts of an opera in Venice, Prince August reportedly asked that Pisendel rather than Vivaldi be the solo violinist. The band, perhaps resenting the German interloper, tried to throw him by rushing during one of his solo passages. But to the prince’s delight, Pisendel kept his cool and slowed the orchestra down by banging the beat out with his foot.
Pisendel returned to Dresden in 1717 with a bundle of Vivaldi scores in his luggage. Dresden was a cosmopolitan city that was often described as a little piece of Italy on the River Elbe. The Elector of Saxony had financed an opera-house, new palaces and Italianate paintings and music. Under Pisendel, the Dresden orchestra gained a particular reputation for its performances of Vivaldi. Even today, one of the largest surviving collections of Vivaldi manuscripts is in the Dresden archives.
Vivaldi’s concertos in G minor RV576 and RV577 were written for Dresden. The Dresden orchestra was bigger than anything in Venice; with over 40 players it offered Vivaldi the chance to vary scorings and to use the wind and brass instruments then popular in Germany. RV577 has violin, two recorders and two oboes as soloists. In the outer movements, the orchestra constantly fragments and coalesces into different sub-groups of soloists. We rush through a kaleidoscope of sections, each characterised by a new theme. By contrast, the middle movement reduces the texture to a lyrical oboe melody with continuo, as if a solo sonata. Similarly, the Concerto in G minor RV576 has an array of soloists, a violin, two horns and three oboes. For the Elector of Saxony listening to such pieces in his opulent Dresden palace, the Italian writing showed his sensitivity to the latest fashion while the multiplicity of solo groups displayed the splendour of his orchestra.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was heavily influenced by the German craze for Vivaldi’s music. He first encountered Vivaldi’s concertos at Weimar in 1713 where he transcribed some for the organ. But he also probably heard Vivaldi concertos at Dresden, which he visited regularly after 1717. It is well known that Bach copied Vivaldi’s harmonic drive in his own music, but given the Dresden connection it is also striking that his Brandenburg Concerto No.1 is scored similarly to Vivaldi’s concertos for Dresden.
Bach spent most of his career in church jobs, but the Brandenburg Concertos belong to the other side of his life, where he was working at courts such as Cöthen or seeking titles from the Dresden or Weißenfels court. Bach felt a court post was what he deserved — perhaps because the ostentatious but often cruel rule of German princes accorded with the strong sense of superiority he felt over his fellow musicians. Bach probably wrote the Brandenburg Concertos when he was at Cöthen, but the set is named after the Margrave of Brandenburg to whom Bach presented an elegant manuscript in the hope of a reward or title.
The Brandenburgs show the difference between the concertos of Bach and Vivaldi. Like Vivaldi’s Dresden concertos, the Brandenburgs use several soloists and revel in a multiplicity of textures. Bach, however, blurs the distinction between tutti and soloist not just in texture but also in themes. Whereas Vivaldi gives different themes to orchestra and to soloists, Bach lets material from the opening tutti leak into the solo parts. He makes maximum use of his opening motifs while also varying them. The result is that every bar has something new but also something familiar — a delightful play of similarity and difference. Bach is drawing on French, German and Italian inspiration, but throughout his concertos there’s the same joie de vivre that we get in Vivaldi. There’s a sheer joy in the composer’s play with textures and the performers’ superb negotiation of tricky passages-a sheer joy that makes for exhilarating listening.