Vivaldi: Oboe Concerti Vol. 2

Vivaldi, Antonio

Oboe Concerto in F major, RV 455
1. I. Allegro giusto 00:03:29 
2. II. Grave 00:02:13 
3. III. Allegro 00:02:42

Oboe Concerto in C major, RV 447
4. I. Allegro non molto 00:04:59 
5. II. Larghetto 00:03:38 
6. III. Minuetto 00:04:58

Oboe Concerto in A minor, RV 463
7. I. Allegro 00:03:12 
8. II. Largo 00:02:22 
9. III. Allegro 00:03:06

Oboe Concerto in F major, RV 457
10. I. Allegro non molto 00:05:05 
11. II. Andante 00:02:53 
12. III. Allegro molto 00:02:46

Oboe Concerto in C major, RV 451
13. I. Allegro molto 00:02:49 
14. II. Largo 00:03:15 
15. III. Allegro 00:03:06

Oboe Concerto in A minor, RV 461
16. I. Allegro non molto 00:03:32 
17. II. Larghetto 00:03:24 
18. III. Allegro 00:02:43

Total Playing Time: 01:00:12

Once virtually forgotten, Antonio Vivaldi now enjoys a reputation that equals the international fame he enjoyed in his heyday. Born in Venice in 1678, the son of a barber who was himself to win distinction as a violinist in the service of the great basilica of San Marco, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1703. At the same time he established himself as a violinist of remarkable ability. A later visitor to Venice described his playing in the opera-house in 1715, his use of high positions so that his fingers almost touched the bridge of the violin, leaving little room for the bow, and his contrapuntal cadenza, a fugue played at great speed. The experience, the observer added, was too artificial to be enjoyable. Nevertheless Vivaldi was among the most famous virtuosi of the day, as well as being a prolific composer of music that won wide favour at home and abroad and exercised a far-reaching influence on the music of others.

For much of his life Vivaldi was intermittently associated with the Ospedale della Pieta, one of the four famous foundations in Venice for the education of orphan, illegitimate or indigent girls, a select group of whom were trained as musicians. Venice attracted, then as now, many foreign tourists, and the Pieta and its music long remained a centre of cultural pilgrimage. In 1703, the year of his ordination, Vivaldi, known as il prete rosso, the red priest, from the inherited colour of his hair, was appointed violin-master of the pupils of the Pieta. The position was subject to annual renewal by the board of governors, whose voting was not invariably in Vivaldi's favour, particularly as his reputation and consequent obligations outside the orphanage increased. In 1709 he briefly left the Pieta, to be reinstated in 1711. In 1716 he was again removed, to be given, a month later, the title Maestro de' Concerti, director of instrumental music. A year later he left the Pieta for a period of three years spent in Mantua as Maestrodi Cappellada Camera to Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, the German nobleman appointed by the Emperor in Vienna to govern the city.

By 1720 Vivaldi was again in Venice and in 1723 the relationship with the Pieta was resumed, apparently on a less formal basis. Vivaldi was commissioned to write two new concertos a month, and to rehearse and direct the performance of some of them. The arrangement allowed him to travel and he spent some time in Rome, and indirectly sought possible appointment in Paris through dedicating compositions to Louis XV, although there was no practical result. Vienna seemed to offer more, with the good will of Charles VI, whose inopportune death, when Vivaldi attempted in old age to find employment there, must have proved a very considerable disappointment.

In 1730 Vivaldi visited Bohemia; in 1735 he was appointed again to the position of Maestro de' Concerti at the Pieta and in 1738 he appeared in Amsterdam, where he led the orchestra at the centenary of the Schouwburg Theatre. By 1740, however, Venice had begun to grow tired of Vivaldi, and shortly after the performance of concertos specially written as part of a serenata for the entertainment of the young Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony his impending departure was announced to the governors of the Pieta, who were asked, and at first refused, to buy some of his concertos.

The following year Vivaldi travelled to Vienna, where he arrived in June, and had time to sell some of the scores he had brought with him, before succumbing to some form of stomach inflammation. He died a month to the day after his arrival and was buried the same day with as little expense as possible. As was remarked in Venice, he had once been worth 50,000 ducats a year, but through his extravagance he died in poverty.

Much of Vivaldi's expenditure was presumably in the opera-house. He was associated from 1714 with the management of the San Angelo Theatre, a second- rate house which nevertheless began to win a name for decent performances, whatever its economies in quality and spectacle. Vivaldi is known to have written some 46 operas, and possibly some 40 more than this; he was also involved as composer and entrepreneur in their production in other houses in Italy. It was his work in the opera-house that led to Benedet to Marcello's satirical attack on him in 1720 in Il teatro alla moda, on the frontispiece of which Aldaviva, alias Vivaldi, is seen as an angel with a fiddle, wearing a priest's hat, standing on the tiller with one foot raised, as if to beat time. It has been suggested that "on the fiddle" had similar connotations in Italian to those it retains in English. Vivaldi had his enemies.

Vivaldi wrote some twenty concertos for oboe and strings, in addition to a further three for two oboes and a score or so more concertos making use of the oboe with other solo instruments. His first published concertos for the instrument appear in the two books published in Amsterdam in 1716 and 1717, each set including one concerto for solo oboe and five for solo violin. These follow the publication by Albinoni of his oboe concertos, issued in 1715. The first recorded oboe teacher at the Pieta is Ludovico Erdmann, employed in 1707 and shortly afterwards in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Another oboist of German origin, Ignazio Siber, was appointed in 1713 and was replaced in 1716 by Onofrio Penati, an Italian musician in the musical establishment of St. Mark's. Siber was re-appointed in 1728 as flute master. These appointments suggest some attention on the part of the governors of the Pieta to the teaching of the oboe.

The Concerto in F major, RV 455, with the suggested editorial tempo marking of Allegrogiusto, has an emphatic opening, followed by the entry of the solo oboe with its own material. The slow movement Grave, with an elaborate oboe solo accompanied by the violins alone, leads to a final Allegro in giga rhythm with unusual elements in the solo oboe part, particularly in minor key passages.

RV 447, in C major, is opened by the first violins, the initial oboe entry accompanied at first by violins and violas. There is an A minor Larghetto with an opening of dynamic contrast, followed by the syncopation of the solo oboe, accompanied by violins and violas. The concerto ends with a Minuetto, with a solo oboe part that allows considerable rhythmic variety.

The Concerto in A minor, RV 463, has an energetic opening, leading to a busy cello and continuo part, before the solo entry. The Largo, in C major, is an embellished aria, each half repeated, and the final Allegro opens with a fugal subject entrusted to the second violin, answered by the first, followed by the cello and then the viola, before the entry of the oboe.

39 concertos by Vivaldi for bassoon survive, one at least written for the Venetian musician Giuseppe Biancardi. The concerto for oboe, RV 457 in F major, is a version of this concerto, RV 502 in B flat. An opening movement with some of the characteristics of an overture is followed by a C major Andante and a last movement that starts in characteristic style with the instruments united in a figure based on the ascending scale.

RV 451, in C major, has a cheerfully vigorous opening, before the entry of the solo oboe. The A minor Largo, an aria for the solo instrument, is succeeded by a last movement Allegro in which the initial tutti figure is slightly altered by the solo instrument, using intervals of a sixth.

The Concerto in A minor, RV 461, one of three in this key, has a tutti opening with a triplet figure providing important contrast. A C major Larghetto slow movement, started by oboe and first violin in unison, before the former is diverted into an embellished aria is followed by a final movement with a tutti opening and an oboe melody that makes full use of the technique of sequence.

Stefan Schilli
Stefan Schilli was born in Offenburg in 1970 and had his first oboe lessons at the age of twelve. Study at the Freiburg Musikhochschule and at the Trossingen Musikhochschule was followed by further study at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule and with Maurice Bourgue. In 1990 and 1991 he was principal oboist with the Freiburg Theatre and since 1991 has been principal oboist in the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio. Competition awards include a prize in the 1987 national Jugend Musiziert Competition and, in 1993 he won Germany's National Music Competition. Stefan Schilli has a repertoire extending from the conventional classical to the contemporary, the second witnessed by his recording in 1991 of music for oboe by Isang Yun. He is a member of the award-winning Avalon Wind Quintet and in 1992 embarked on his present collaboration with Naxos and Marco Polo. 

Failoni Chamber Orchestra
The Failoni Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1981 by members of the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra. Under the leadership of the violinist Béla Nagy, the orchestra has taken part in a number of important international festivals and in Hungary only yields first place to the longer established Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra. The orchestra takes its name from the distinguished Italian conductor Sergio Failoni, conductor of the Hungarian State Opera from 1928 until his death twenty years later.

Pier Giorgio Morandi
Pier Giorgio Morandi was born in the Italian town of Biella in 1958. After graduation from the Milan Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in 1979 and triumph in the La Scala oboe competition, he was invited by Claudio Abbado to become principal oboist at La Scala, a position he held for ten years. In 1985 he studied conducting with Ferdinand Leitner at the Salzburg Mozarteum and in the two following years worked as assistant at La Scala to Riccardo Muti, later serving as assistant for two years to the conductor Giuseppe Patane in a number of important operatic productions and recordings. His subsequent career has brought engagements as a conductor in the opera-house and concert-hall throughout Italy and as far afield as Japan.