L'estro armonico, Op. 3

History

L'estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration) was published as Antonio Vivaldi's Op. 3 in Amsterdam in 1711 and dedicated to Ferdinando de'Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany under the title of "Ferdinando III". Vivaldi's Twelve Trio Sonatas, Op. 1, and Twelve Violin Sonatas, Op. 2, only contained sonatas, thus L'estro armonico was his first collection of concertos appearing in print. It was also the first time Vivaldi chose a foreign publisher, Estienne Roger, instead of an Italian one. Vivaldi composed a few concertos specifically for L'estro armonico, while other concertos of the set had been composed at an earlier date.

Structure

L'estro armonico is a set of 12 concertos for string instruments. In the 1711 first publication each concerto was printed in eight parts:

Four violin parts

Two viola parts

Cello

Continuo, printed as a figured bass for violone and harpsichord.

The concertos belong to the concerto a 7 format, that is: for each concerto there are seven independent parts. In each consecutive group of three concertos, the first is a concerto for four violins, the second for two violins, and the third a solo violin concerto. The cello gets solistic passages in several of the concertos for four and two violins, so that a few of the concertos conform to the traditional Roman concerto grosso format where a concertino of two violins and cello plays in contrast to a string orchestra a form pioneered by one of Vivaldi’s biggest influences Arcangelo Corelli. L'estro armonico pioneered orchestral unisono in concerto movements.

Concerto No. 1, RV 549

Concerto No. 1 in D major for four violins, cello and strings, RV 549:

Concerto No. 2, RV 578

Concerto No. 2 in G minor for two violins, cello and strings, RV 578:

Concerto No. 3, RV 310

Concerto No. 3 in G major for solo violin and strings, RV 310:

Concerto No. 4, RV 550

Concerto No. 4 in E minor for four violins, cello and strings, RV 550:

Concerto No. 5, RV 519

Concerto No. 5 in A major for two violins, cello and strings, RV 519:

Concerto No. 6, RV 356

Concerto No. 6 in A minor for solo violin and strings, RV 356:

Concerto No. 7, RV 567

Concerto No. 7 in F major for four violins, cello and strings, RV 567:

Concerto No. 8, RV 522

Concerto No. 8 in A minor for two violins and strings, RV 522:

Concerto No. 9, RV 230

Concerto No. 9 in D major for solo violin and strings, RV 230:

Concerto No. 10, RV 580

Concerto No. 10 in B minor for four violins, cello and strings, RV 580:

Concerto No. 11, RV 565

Concerto No. 11 in D minor for two violins, cello and strings, RV 565:

(Note that this concerto may be referred to as having 5 movements due to the tempo changes in the first movement.)

Concerto No. 12, RV 265

Concerto No. 12 in E major for solo violin and strings, RV 265:

Performance, transmission and reception

In our younger days, the fifth concerto of Vivaldi, composed of rattling passages in perpetual semiquavers, was the making of every player on the violin, who could mount into the clouds, and imitate not only the flight, but the whistling notes of birds.

In her preface to the Dover edition, Vivaldi scholar Eleanor Selfridge-Field gives an account of the performance and publication history of L'estro armonico. Probably initially composed for performance in the Ospedale della Pietà, the collection of 12 concertos was grouped in four cycles of three, each containing a concerto for 1, 2 and 4 concertante solo violins. Each double violin concerto also had a concertante violoncello part, which did not have a fixed role, sometimes playing solo, sometimes responding to the two violin soloists. In the Pietà, performances of the concertos would have allowed advanced pupils to develop their skills as soloists and given the chance to others to learn how to play in an ensemble. The dedicatee of the collection, Ferdinando de' Medici, frequently visited Venice from his native Florence and supported the Pietà. After a concert there in April 1711 featuring an oratorio by Gasparini, Vivaldi's senior colleague, the local Venetian newspaper reported that "the audience, larger than ever, was made ecstatic by the spirited harmony of such a variety of instruments". Selfridge-Field has suggested that it is highly likely that the concert included performances of concertos from L'estro armonico.

Following their publication, the concertos from the collection were widely performed in Italy, as church music and chamber music, both indoors and outdoors. In theatres and opera houses they were performed by small groups of 10, as in the Pietà, sometimes with Vivaldi as soloist. Open air concerts in the 1720s and 1730s could have as many as a hundred performers. Despite originating in a religious institution, the print copies were widely distributed throughout Europe, with 20 reprintings of Estienne Roger's Amsterdam edition between 1711 and 1743. Sales were slightly more successful than those of Vivaldi's famous 1725 collection Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione which contained The Four Seasons.

In London John Walsh, Handel's printer, published the twelve concertos in two instalments in 1715 and 1717, when he also published all twelve in one volume, with individual concertos included in later collections. In London his version was pirated by other printing firms in the 1720s; and in Paris there were five or more reprintings from the late 1730s to the early 1750s. The works were also transmitted through manuscript copies, often of individual concertos, the most popular by far being Op. 3, No. 5, which has 15 known copies and transcriptions.

Transcriptions and arrangements for keyboard instruments

The many surviving transcriptions of Vivaldi's L'estro armonico reflect the immediate popularity of these works within his lifetime. As Talbot (2010) points out, Op. 3, No. 5, RV 519, by far the most popular concerto of the set in the British Isles, was so often performed in public and private that it was simply referred to as "Vivaldi's Fifth". The collection—and especially the fifth concerto—spawned many arrangements for keyboard instruments. (Arrangements for other instruments, such as the harp, or vocal ensembles are discussed in the previous section.) The great success of Vivaldi's concertos during his lifetime was matched by his rapid descent into obscurity after his death in 1741. As Vivaldi scholars agree, some of the earliest and most significant transcriptions—those made in Weimar in the 1710s by Johann Sebastian Bach as part of a series of arrangements for keyboard and organ of Italian and Italianate concertos—indirectly played a decisive role in restoring Vivaldi's reputation during the so-called "Vivaldi revival" in the twentieth century.

The Ryom-Verzeichnis, explained in detail in the two volumes Ryom (1986) and Ryom (2007), contains a summary of the known surviving publications, handwritten manuscript copies and arrangements of the concertos. Of these six were arranged by Bach: three of those for solo violin were arranged for harpsichord; two double violin concertos for organ (two keyboards and pedal); and one of the concertos for four violins was arranged for four harpsichords and orchestra. Four further keyboard arrangements appear in Anne Dawson's book, an English anthology dating from around 1720 of arrangements for clavichord, virginal or harpsichord prepared by an unknown hand. As Ryom (1986, pp. 616–617) points out, the fifth concerto Op. 3, No. 5, RV 519, is the unique concerto to have resulted in so many transcriptions: these are described in detail in Talbot (2010).

The concerto transcriptions by Bach were probably made in Weimar where he was employed as court organist and later concertmaster in the period 1708–1717. It is thought likely that many of the transcriptions were made in 1713/1714, when Bach would have had access to a copy of L'estro armonico brought back to Weimar by the young Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar after a two-year stay in the Netherlands. Bach made harpsichord arrangements of three of the concertos for solo violin:

Op. 3, No. 3, RV 310, arranged as BWV 978

Discography

L'estro armonico in its entirety has been recorded several times by some of the world's leading orchestras and ensembles. Some notable interpretations include:

The Italian ensemble I Musici recorded the complete concertos twice, both for Philips Records: first in 1963 with Roberto Michelucci, then in 1984 with Pina Carmirelli.

In 1973, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner recorded the works for Decca Records with violinists Alan Loveday, Carmel Kaine and Iona Brown.

With the rise of historically-informed performance, the concertos were frequently recorded by period instrument ensembles such as Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (L'Oiseau-Lyre), Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert (Archiv Produktion) and Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante (Erato).

Italian conductor Federico Guglielmo recorded L'estro armonico with L'Arte dell'Arco in 2014 for his series of Vivaldi's complete orchestral works for Brilliant Classics.