Vivaldi's Venice : music and celebration in the Baroque era / Patrick Barbier ; translated from the French by Margaret Crosland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barbier, Patrick.

Standardized Title:

Venise de Vivaldi. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vivaldi, Antonio, 1678-1741--Homes and haunts.

Vivaldi, Antonio.

Vivaldi, Antonio, 1678-1741.

Music--Italy--Venice--17th century--History and criticism.

Music.

Music--Italy--Venice--18th century--History and criticism.

Italy--Venice.

Physical Description:

194 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Souvenir Press, 2003.

Summary:

Vivaldi, born in I678, was one of the most influential composers and violinists of his age. This book evokes the Venice of Vivaldi's time, an essentially musical city that lived for hedonism. In Venice all the social classes mingled in their love of music--artistocrats, gondoliers, and workers would meet at all sorts of musical and theatrical entertainments and the city's carnivals went on for months at a time. Erudite and entertaining, Vivaldi's Venice is a biography of the city that was the muse of the mysterious young composer.

Contents:

Chapter 1 A city, its people, and music 1

Music and society in Venice: a few preliminaries 2

Omnipresence of music in Venice

Supremacy over Naples

Music everywhere and at every moment 3

Music, art of the people

Astonishment of foreigners at the extent of its practice

The barcarolles

A people who expressed themselves in music

Can we really know Vivaldi? 8

Lack of documentation on Vivaldi

Family origins and ecclesiastical career

Impossibility of practising the priesthood

His personality, his portraits

Vivaldi as seen by his contemporaries

Chapter 2 Discovering Venice in Vivaldi's day 17

Portrait of a city and its people 19

Demography of Venice in the time of Vivaldi

The different social classes and their hierarchy

The nobility and the doge

Interactions between the social classes

On some Venetian lifestyles 25

The arrival of an outsider in Venice, his feelings of strangeness (urbanism, calendar, times of day)

The gondoliers, women and courtesans

Difficult contacts between the nobility, ordinary people and foreign visitors

Licentiousness and gambling

Feast days and ritual as guarantees of stability 36

A plethora of ritual feast days

Their division into three categories: immoveable feasts (Christmas, etc.) moveable feasts (Ascension and the marriage with the sea) and 'extraordinary' feast days (coronation of a doge, enthronement of a patriarch)

Carnival, quintessence of the Venetian spirit 45

Six months of carnival in three periods

The taste for wearing masks

The games on Carnival Thursday, the bulls on Carnival Sunday, the madness of Shrove Tuesday

Summary of the 38 immovable religious feast days in Venice 51

Chapter 3 The Ospedali, or musical fame for the poorest of people 54

The four Ospedali: orphanages and conservatoires 54

Remote origins of the four Ospedali

Their place in the city and what remains of them today

The aims of these institutions

Organisation and social life in the Ospedali 58

Admission of poor children and orphan girls

Population of these institutions

Management, 'choir' girls and 'working class' girls

Discipline and outings

An international musical reputation 62

Fame of the young girls

Admiration of foreign visitors

Concerts, masses, oratorios

Contribution to Venice and to the Ospedali

Improved social status for the girls but a ban from practising music on leaving

The love of one boarder for the painter Tiepolo

Vivaldi and La Pieta 70

Individual characteristics of La Pieta

Specialisation of this Ospedale in instrumental music

Performance and distribution of the voices

Role of Vivaldi and of the various maestri

The oratorio Juditha triumphans

The concertos composed for La Pieta and the contribution of the Red Priest

His influence on the whole of Europe

The decline of the Ospedali at the end of the eighteenth century

Chapter 4 Sacred music and religious festivals 83

The religious organisation of the city 84

The patriarch and the primicerio of St Mark's

Relationships between the Church and the State

Ordained and lay clergy

Ordinary people in the great Venetian ceremonies 86

Highly individual Venetian religious practices

Magnificent processions and sacred or 'republican' celebrations

The burial of a doge

Relaxation of morals in the eighteenth century

Music at St Mark's and its performers 93

Originality of the services at St Mark's

The chapel master, the singers and the musicians

Intensity of religious life at St Mark's and the organisation of the ceremonies

Splendour of the processions in the Piazza or during Holy Week

Musical and social life in the convents 100

Freedom of morals in the convents

Casanova's adventures with a nun

Masked visitors in the parlour

Ceremonial festivities in some convents

Balls and operas in the parlour

Chapter 5 Venetian opera and its public 108

Venice, opera capital of the seventeenth century 109

Venetian opera in the seventeenth century and the opening of the first theatres to the general public

Exceptional role of Monteverdi and Cavalli

Spirit of these operas and astonishment of foreign visitors

The theatre audience 113

The Italian-style auditorium and the mingling of social classes

The groundlings

The theatre boxes, real private salons

Life in the boxes and the multiple pleasures offered by the theatres

An evening at the opera

Behaviour of the lower classes and the habit of spitting down from the boxes

The mechanics of opera production Family owners and impresarios 120

Decor and production 126

Castrati and women singers 129

Farinelli in Venice 132

Satire on behaviour in the theatres 139

Vivaldi's operas in their context 144

Spread of his influence abroad

Vivaldi's debuts in opera

Vivaldi's dependence on second-class theatres

The singer Anna Giro and her relationship with the Red Priest

Vivaldi's journeys

Vivaldi and the satire of Benedetto Marcello

Genius and weaknesses of Vivaldi's operatic repertoire

Chapter 6 Musical splendour of the private palazzi 155

The 'academies' or music at home 155

Different meanings of the word 'academy'

Societies for musicians, the Philharmonic Academy, the Society of Saint Cecilia, the social protection of musicians

The 'amateur' concerts according to different social classes

Parties and balls on special occasions

A party with the Contarini family 163

The villa and the theatre at Piazzola

The magnificent fetes of 1679-80

The operas, their productions and lighting illuminations

Ceremonies and receptions at the embassies 165

Arrivals of the ambassadors

Luxurious life in the embassies and formal ceremonies

An evening at the French Embassy

The art of the 'serenade' 169

An allegorical mini-opera

The ambassadors' commissions and the entertainments linked to dynastic events

Vivaldi and the French Embassy

Epilogue: Death in ... Vienna 174

Vivaldi's death certificate

Reasons for his departure from Venice

Assessment of his work

Solitude and poverty of Vivaldi in Vienna

Subsequent neglect

Rediscovery of his music in the twentieth century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [184]-191) and index.

ISBN:

0285636707

OCLC:

52695686