VIVALDI MANDOLIN CONCERTO
For many, the appeal of Vivaldi’s
music lies in its tunefulness, clarity and
optimism—its aura of coming from a less
complicated era when music was meant
simply to be beautiful. Yet, as scholar
H. C. Robbins Landon has pointed
out, there is another quality in Vivaldi’s
music that links him to our own time.
Robbins Landon calls attention to his
“wiry, nervous sound” and the extreme
concentration and vivacity of his rhythm.
Vivaldi’s music may be beautiful but it
is never boring, and it has a rhythmic
propulsion and energy to which our
driven era can easily relate.
Known as the “Red Priest” for his fiery
hair, Vivaldi took holy orders as a youth
but pursued the career of violin virtuoso
and composer for his entire life. Most of
his years were devoted to directing the
music programs at Venice’s Pio Ospedale
della Pietà, a foundling institution for
orphaned girls. So superb was his training
that concerts by L’Ospedale’s all-girl
orchestras and choirs ranked among the
musical wonders of 18 th -century Venice.
To showcase the girls’ and his own
instrumental virtuosity, Vivaldi wrote
hundreds of concertos for various solo
instruments and combinations. In the
process, he established the Baroque
three-movement concerto form of
two fast movements surrounding a
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slow movement. The outer movements
alternate an orchestral (tutti) ritornello or
refrain with freer, modulating episodes
in which the soloist shows off his or her
abilities. The slow movement emphasizes
the soloist, with a singing melody to
subdued accompaniment.
The Mandolin Concerto in C Major was
written in 1725 about the same time as The
Four Seasons. Throughout, Vivaldi was very
careful never to let the orchestra swamp
the mandolin’s soft but brilliant sound. In
the vivacious opening Allegro, the intricate
solo sections require both expressivity
and virtuosity. In the Largo, the soloist
plays delicately pinging dotted rhythms,
reinforced by the orchestral pizzicatos. The
final Allegro is playful and emphasizes
rapid sixteenth notes for the soloist.
As his fame spread throughout
Europe (J. S. Bach was a great fan and
imitator), Vivaldi went on extensive
tours around Italy and the German-
speaking countries. It is believed that the
Lute Concerto in D Major was written
about 1730 in Prague for a Bohemian
nobleman. Transcribed here for the
mandolin, it ranks among Vivaldi’s
most popular concertos, with one of the
loveliest of his slow movements: a moving
meditation for the soloist over muted
strings. Its fast movements have superb,
almost percussive energy suitable to lute
or mandolin, with the finale an ebullient
dance in bouncing 12/8 meter.
Instrumentation: String orchestra.
SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR
Georges Bizet
Born in Paris, France, October 25, 1838;
died in Bougival, France, June 3, 1875
Georges Bizet belonged to that ill-fated
group of composers—including Mozart,
Schubert and Mendelssohn—who blazed
up rapidly and then were extinguished well
before they reached their 40 th year. Bizet
was particularly unfortunate in that he
died at age 36, exactly three months after
the disastrous premiere of his great opera
Carmen. If he had lived only one more year,
he could have rejoiced in the international
celebrity that had eluded him up to then
despite his extraordinary talent.
However, life was full of promise when
Bizet wrote his remarkable Symphony in
C in the fall of 1855 just after celebrating
his 17th birthday. His precocity was
astounding. He had been allowed to enter
the Paris Conservatoire just before his tenth
birthday, even though he was below the
required age. After six months of study,
he won the Conservatoire’s first prize
for solfège or sight-singing. And in all his
other courses —piano, organ, fugue —he
proved an equally quick study. At age 18,
he concluded his ascent by capturing the
biggest prize of all: the Prix de Rome for
composition, which underwrote five years
of study in Rome, Germany and Paris.
At the Conservatoire, the noted composer
Charles Gounod became very impressed
with the teenager. Gounod had long been
laboring over his Symphony in D Major,
and Bizet assisted him by preparing a
piano arrangement. Building on what he’d
learned, Bizet then promptly wrote his own
Symphony in C Major, which—though it
borrowed some ideas and techniques from
the Gounod work—turned out to be a
vastly superior piece in every way. But Bizet
apparently thought little of it and squirreled
it away among his manuscripts.
It then languished in the Conserva-
toire’s library until the 1930s, when it was