Luogo e data di registrazione		Vevey (Svizzera) - giugno 1968 (op. 10) La Chaux-de-Fonds (Svizzera) - luglio 1974 (op. 11) La Chaux-de-Fonds (Svizzera) - luglio 1978 (op. 12, 1-2) La Chaux-de-Fonds (Svizzera) - settembre 1974 (op. 12, 3-6)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		-
	Prima Edizione originale LP		Philips - 839 726 - (1 LP) - durata 53' 25" - (p) 1968 - Analogico - (op. 10) Philips - 6500 933 - (1 LP) - durata 49' 31" - (p) 1975 - Analogico - (op. 11, 1-4) Philips - 6500 934 - (1 LP) - durata 48' 34" - (p) 1975 - Analogico - (op. 11, 5-6 & op. 12, 1-2) Philips - 6500 937 - (1 LP) - durata 42' 26" - (p) 1975 - Analogico - (op. 12, 3-6)
	Note		-

CONCERTOS, OP. 10 Vivaldi seems to have composed with unbelievable facility and speed. We are told that he could write the score of a concerto quicker than the copyist could transcribe it. In the concerto, he did not bind himself to one specific form, like, for instance, Corelli who constructed his concertos on the principle of ”timbre arrangement,” or Torelli who differentiated thematically between solo and tutti. To describe Vivaldi's wealth of varied forms is not possible in a few words. There are concertos of his in which the solo and ripieno parts are strictly defined in wellbalanced phrases and others where the solo springs in small particles from the whole. Vivaldi's style of composition is closely connected with the concertante element. His music is vigorous and sensitive. It has completely avoided the restrictions of the fugal manner of older masters, and is built for the most part on a homophonic basis. Vivaldi liked to keep the upper parts and bass distinct from each other, both in rhythm and motives. Now and then, he has solo passages accompanied by unison violins only, without sustained basses, after the Neapolitan custom, and, like all Venetians, he loves the big impressive unison passages at the beginning of a movement. These are true Baroque practices, which frequently indicate the character of a piece in a few notes. The concertos for flute, strings, and continuo of Op. 10 appeared in Amsterdam in 1729, published by Le Cène. The first three concertos bear the titles “La tempesta di mare” (Storm at Sea), "La notte" (Night), and “Il cardellino” (The Coldfinch). We often find such titles in Vivaldi's music, for example in the “Four Seasons” of Op. 8. They suggest portraits from nature, which have always been popular in any age. Few composers, however, have been granted the ability to bind such pictures so strongly and convincingly into a formal framework, and to make them accord so happily with musical precepts that they do not degenerate into flat, superficial programme music for its own sake. From a rich store of effects and oratorical turns of expression, Baroque music creates so-called loci topici, which enable it to render any human sentiments and events of nature which would be rightly understood by the intelligent listener of that era familiar with their use. We are today too easily inclined to thrust the programme aspect of these objective titles into the foreground. They should, however, be regarded far more as supplementary expression marks. It is certainly possible that they also lent wings to Vivaldi's imagination, yet rather do they serve to provide a “crib” for the executive musician, as he has to modify certain tempos and emotions far more drastically to accord with a specific title than would be the case with abstract expression marks like andante spiritoso, allegro molto, etc.. Thus the title of the first concerto in F, “Storm at Sea,” immediately evokes a temperamental, flashing Allegro, and the tempestuous Presto, which begins in unison, is carried out in the same vein. The middle movement, with its tranquil flute solo and dotted-rhythm accompaniment provides a strongly effective contrast. There is a similar piece, under the same title, in the aforementioned Op. 8. The second concerto, in G minor, finds a counterpart in a bassoon concerto, which has come down to us in manuscript. While the latter is in the classical three-movement form, Vivaldi divides the Op. 10 flute concerto into smaller episodes, contrasting in tone and character, of which the second is entitled “Fantasmi” (which might be translated as “visions” or "apparitions”), and the Largo, with its sustained notes and scoring for muted strings, “Sleep.” The third concerto of the series, “The Coldfinch,” is an exceptionally gay and light-hearted piece. Vivaldi's technique here is very interesting. He constructs almost the entire first movement out of the dotted motive in the strings and the triad upon which the part for solo flute is built. The fourth and fifth concertos are of a pleasant, mildly toned and agreeable character, accommodating themselves to the pastoral nature of the flute. In the first movement of the concerto in F true Vivaldi dynamics are revealed in the chromatic motive over a sustained bass, and there is a real daemonic element in the G minor Largo. The sixth and last concerto begins with a theme in unison extending over more than an octave. The same "Cardellino" motive as in the third concerto eventually emerges in the flute solo. In the second movement Vivaldi states an eight-bar theme in C minor, which he changes to the major in the next movement and then works out in variations over an ostinato bass. This manner of composition was otherwise customary only in the suite form. Here Vivaldi, in a most original way, takes it over in the concerto. Franz Giegling CONCERTOS, OP. 11 AND OP. 12 On September 2, 1729 an advertisement appeared in the “Gazette d’Amsterdam” for 12 newly-published concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, described as “Opera undecima e duodecima, XII Concerti a tre violini, alto viola, violoncello e organo.” (It should be explained that “tre violini” was a common shorthand for a principal, i.e. solo, violin part and two orchestral parts, and that “organo” denoted any appropriate keyboard continuo instrument.) We know from the title pages of the two collections that they were engraved at the expense of Michel-Charles Le Cène, head since 1722 of the publishing firm to which Vivaldi had entrusted his Op. 3-10. Interestingly, Op. 10-12 are allotted the consecutive numbers 544-546 in Le Cène’s catalogue, implying consecutive publication, though Op. 10 - the celebrated set of six flute concertos - presumably appeared a little earlier as it is not mentioned in the same advertisement. Whenever there is no clear evidence (such as a dedication) of an eighteenth-century composer’s personal involvement in the publication of music under his name, the possibility may exist that the works were at best acquired through third parties or at worst written by someone else. The direr possibility need not concern us, for the present works are genuine enough, but a couple of points cause one to question whether in actual fact the works were submitted by their composer to Le Cène in two sets of six, or at least whether they were not perhaps subdivided by the publisher in an originally unintended manner. For a start, the last concerto of Op. 11 is a new version with oboe soloist of a work published in 1727 with violin soloist as the third concerto of Vivaldi's Op. 9, “La Cetra.” Vivaldi was as fond as Handel of borrowing from himself, but he usually took care for obvious reasons not to duplicate the works he sent to Amsterdam for publication - works upon which his reputation abroad would principally depend. Then the two adjacent works in B flat at the end of Op. 12 are a curious anomaly. When composers did not entirely avoid the repetition of a key in a set of six or 12 works they made a practice of keeping any two works in the same key apart from one another. For example, the two C major works in Vivaldi's Op. 8, "Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione," lie in sixth and twelfth place, the two C minor works in second and eighth place. Publishers acting on their own account were less solicitous, as several anthologies show. On the other hand, the heterogeneity of style and instrumental specification is entirely typical of Vivaldi's published sets, for most if not all of them were put together (often after some revision) from works already tried and tested in performance rather than composed from scratch. Thus three of the present works (Op. 11 Nos. 1 and 3 and Op. 12 No. 5) have autograph concordances in the Turin manuscripts, generally thought to represent Vivaldi's working collection built up during his years of service at La Pietà, the Venetian charitable institution which combined the functions of an orphanage for girls and a musical conservatory. Vivaldi specialised in playing the violin in extremely high positions (an incredulous eyewitness reports in 1715 how he “placed his fingers a mere hair”s breadth from the bridge so that there was scarcely any room for the bow”!), and it is significant that all three works take the soloist up to A or even B flat in altissimo. Two other concertos - Op. 11 Nos. 2 (with the original nickname of “Il favorito”) and 5 - appear with different finales in the manuscript set of violin concertos entitled “La Cetra” (on no account to be confused with the published collection of the same name), copied out in 1728 for Emperor Charles VI, with whom the composer enjoyed a close relationship. The solo writing in these two concertos is exceptionally intricate. The remaining works conform to the general run of Vivaldi's published concertos by cultivating a rather “classical” virtuosity which avoids the extravagances found in many of the concertos remaining in manuscript. One concerto, Op. 12 No. 3, dispenses with a soloist altogether; it belongs to the important category of “ripieno concerto, ” of which Vivaldi produced over 50 examples, if we may include compositions used as operatic overtures. These works give the lie to the widespread belief that Vivaldi was a composer who habitually thought "harmonically" rather than "contrapuntally"; let it be noted that all three movements of the present concerto are severely - even audaciously - contrapuntal, the finale being a full-scale fugue! In view of their originality and quality it is strange that none of Vivaldi's other ripieno concertos were published. The case of the solitary oboe concerto (Op. 11 No. 6) is entirely different, as Vivaldi (or his publishers) had already cashed in on the popularity of this novel genre following the appearance in 1715 of Tomaso Albinoni’s Concerti a cinque, Op. 7 (containing eight single or double oboe concertos), by including a pair of works with oboe in both Op. 7 and Op. 8, thereby setting a precedent. The structure of the fast outer movements in Vivaldi’s solo concertos is standardised in outline but variable in detail. The tutti always open with an imposing paragraph, termed ritornello, in the home key; this reappears at intervals thereafter in various keys, often in abridged form or with its constituent elements rearranged. Between tutti statements the soloist enters the arena. Whereas Vivaldi's imitators usually keep the length of alternating tutti and solo portions roughly constant, Vivaldi himself has a pronounced tendency to expand the length of the solo episodes progressively while curtailing the ritornellos. The soloist gradually takes charge of the movement, as it were, although the tutti are always granted the final word. Another peculiarity of Vivaldi's solo episodes is the abruptness of their changes of rhythm and especially of harmonic rhythm: having dreamily elaborated a single chord for several bars, the soloist will suddenly spring to life and pass with great rapidity from chord to chord. Unpredictability - the sense of adventure - is a major feature of Vivaldi’s style. The slow movements are more varied in type. One (in Op. 11 No. 3) is a binary movement in two repeated sections. The others are unitary (i.e. through-composed) movements, some featuring short tutti ritornellos. The scoring of the accompaniment to the soloist attests the vitality of Vivaldi's imagination, for few movements employ the identical formula. What the diverse sorts of accompaniment have in common is a lightening and simplification of the texture which enables the soloist to embellish his part at pleasure with the minimum constraint. Sometimes the lower instruments and continuo are suppressed, leaving the viola to play the bass line - as in Op. 12 Nos. 1 and 2; sometimes the accompaniment is reduced to two strands as in Op. 12 Nos. 4 and 6 - sometimes even to a single strand played on cello (often doubled by continuo) or upper strings as in Op. 11 Nos. 3 and 5. Vivaldi popularised the device of playing a simple bass line on violins in a high register without continuo support. C.P.E. Bach roundly condemned the practice and referred disapprovingly to “A certain master in Italy,” whom he held responsible for its introduction, but when used in the right place it can produce an attractive luminosity of timbre attainable in no other way. The commonness of ostinato patterns in the accompaniment is noteworthy: the slow movement of Op. 11 No. 6 is even constructed over a modulating ground bass, a device familiar from the slow movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in A minor, Op. 3 No. 8. The choice of key for the slow movements may surprise, for two-thirds of them remain in the principal tonality of the work. In the early part of the century the relative major or minor key (retained in Op. 11 No.1 and Op. 12 No. 3) was easily the most popular key, offering as it did a contrast of mode. By the 1720’s, however, the average dimensions of concertos had increased so much (hence the publication of their parts in volumes containing only six rather than the full 12 works) that contrast within movements was becoming as important as contrast between movements. Since the relative key would be visited as a matter of course in the outer movements its presence in the central movement would produce less impact than formerly. Composers therefore felt free to choose keys either more distant from the principal tonality or closer to it - in the present case identical with it. Such “homotonality” was later to prove a characteristic of some of Haydn’s most powerful works. Op. 11 and Op, 12 are not in a literal sense Vivaldi's swansong in the realm of the concerto, for as late as 1740, one year before his death, he was still writing concertos for special occasions. However, they contain his last instrumental works to bear an authentic opus number. Already aged over 50, he had ceased to regard instrumental music as his principal area of activity and was increasingly turning to the composition and promotion of opera. This may in part explain the absence of new concerto publications during the 1730’s. Or perhaps the rise of younger virtuosos such as Locatelli and Leclair, whose formidable technical demands on the soloist easily outstripped those of the Venetian master, may have counselled prudence. But whatever the reasons, we could hardly take our leave of Vivaldi the concertist in happier circumstances, for the 12 works in Op. 11 and Op. 12 are all worthy specimens of his art. True, the highest degree of perfection - that of a Bach - is a quality they cannot be claimed to possess; nor do they really aspire to it, for it is in Vivaldi's nature to sacrifice refinement of detail to immediacy of communication. Like certain other great composers whose compositional technique is by normal standards not beyond reproach - Berlioz and Schumann spring to mind - he finally manages to convince us through the sheer force of his personality. Michael Talbot