Vivaldi’s Venice: Music and Theatre in 18th Century Essay

Instrumental music is not an easy matter to write about, especially when we are to try to trace the development of this kind of music through the history of mankind. Such a kind of art as instrumental music is rather unique because it combines in itself the ability to describe the objective reality by means of sounds, but at the same time, demands great skills from the person who wants to master this art. The development of instrumental music is a very interesting process because it goes through all the stages of human social development and presents a considerable volume of information concerning not only music but also the history and philosophy of human life. But, nevertheless, it is the task we are going to deal with in this essay. We are going to study the working path of the famous Venetian composer and one of the prominent violinists of his time, Antonio Vivaldi, and the influence that historical events of that time had on his life and music. We will deal with this topic in the context of the social and political development of 18^th century Venice. So, firstly, let us take a brief look at the epoch Vivaldi lived and worked in.

The 18^th century is known in the history of this Italian city as the period of considerable decline in almost all respects. The political influence of Venice decreased greatly as such countries as Austria and France were taking the leading positions in Continental Europe. Venice, which was one of the leading powers on sea lost the major part of its possessions and, soon, its independence. After the Great French Revolution at the end of the 18^th century, France headed by Napoleon started waging wars in Europe, and Venice was the object of the war between France and Austria. At first France, then Austria ruled the free city up to the establishment of the united Italian kingdom in the 19^th century (History World, 2008).

All these events seemingly should have suppressed the national identity of the Venetians and their culture as well, but in fact, they did not. Even vice versa, during the epoch of the political decline and decrease of the international positions of Venice, the culture of this Italian city experienced an incredible rise. This process was accompanied by the appearance of the famous Venice Carnival and the strong impact on the development of instrumental music. This was the time when the genius of instrumental music, Antonio Vivaldi, lived and created his eternal masterpieces of art (Barbier, 2003).

Antonio Vivaldi was born in 1678 in the family of a barber and a tailor’s daughter. Since his early childhood, Antonio was interested in music, but his parents insisted on him studying to become a priest, and up to the year 1703 Vivaldi was doing what his parents demanded. That is why Vivaldi is also known as “The Red Priest” (“Red” because he had red hair) (Heller, 1997). But even in the church, Vivaldi managed to take up his favorite business – music. Soon Vivaldi became the leading violinist in the St. Mark’s church in Venice, simultaneously playing and teaching violin in the Pieta (Venice organization that took care of orphans and taught them instrumental music). Alongside these activities, Vivaldi started composing his own pieces of music, including operas and sonatas. In the works by Vivaldi, we can clearly observe the influence of the Carnivals which were an integral part of the social and cultural life of this city (Kolneder, 1970). In 1718, he started traveling around Italy and the whole of Europe. During this period Antonio Vivaldi finished writing three operas for the Carnivals in Mantua and Rome in 1723 and 1724, where three of his works were performed and Vivaldi was invited to play in the Palace of the Pope (Krantz, 2008).

The period when Vivaldi started creating his masterpieces coincided with the time of high development of the theatre and opera in Venice and the whole of Europe. The style called the Baroque was dominant in the art at the time of Vivaldi’s life and Antonio Vivaldi himself is often called the Voice of the Baroque. This can be explained by the fact that the art of the Baroque, and especially its music were characterized by the features which were brought to the instrumental music by Vivaldi. Among these features, the most important ones are temper, vanity, and obsession with money and pleasures, as well as intense and energized music that predicted the classical style of music forms, romantic virtuosity, and enjoying life and the music he played. All these characteristics were typical of the composer himself, who was known as a rather selfish and delightful person. So, as we can observe, Vivaldi reflected the spirit of the epoch he lived in by the very philosophy of his life and work (Landon, 1996).

Antonio Vivaldi made a great contribution to the development of instrumental music in Italy, as well as in the world on the whole. Vivaldi made use of the instruments like violin, for which he composed more than two hundred concertos, bassoon, oboe, cello, flute, recorder, viola d’amore, mandolin, and lute. The total amount of instrumental concertos composed by Antonio Vivaldi reached the level of more than 500 concertos. Besides, there are more than forty double concertos, for example, the Concerto for Two Trumpets. He was the first among the European composers who regularly made use of the “ritornello” form in fast movements of the piece of music. Vivaldi is also known as the person who managed to compose the standard three-movement scheme “fast-slow-fast” in the classical concerto (Kolneder, 1970).

All these achievements by Antonio Vivaldi reflected the life he saw in his native city and the trends of the whole epoch contemporary to the Venetian composer. The epoch of Baroque was the time when people suddenly decided that they had to live for pleasure and, moreover, did not find on their way any prohibitions from the side of the Christian Church and no other obstacles. Finally, after the severe Middle Ages, when there was no place for pleasures, people got the philosophy of living that satisfied the most exclusive demands. Venetian Carnivals, as well as the Carnivals all over the rest of Italy, were actually not just carnivals, their essence lied in the theatre performance of a certain story, with the use of masks, suits, and various scenery. Music of the Baroque epoch was characterized by the fast tempo and great energy of the works, which could not be observed in other music styles before the Baroque came into power. All this was the fertile soil for the birth of the Baroque style and for the appearance of such a revolutionary composer as Antonio Vivaldi (Barbier, 2003).

The facts and thoughts presented above in the current essay allow us to make the following logical conclusion. The 18^th century was a rather specific period in the history of Europe, the time of bloody wars, and at the same time, the epoch of the development of a culture that had never been seen before. The military events not only failed to prevent the arts from their further development, they seemingly promoted arts as the only means for ordinary people to forget about the harsh reality and to see the real beauty of this world. Venice clearly exemplified the course of the development of the events. This city was a powerful state in Europe but then lost its power and influence in the political sense, but gained the status of one of the European cultural capitals together with Vienna, Florence and Paris. Antonio Vivaldi was the prophet of the Baroque epoch, he reflected all the major trends of this style in culture and, moreover, was the father of the instrumental music during the period of the Baroque. Nowadays Antonio Vivaldi is still one of the best known composers of the instrumental music and his works are still popular around the world. His vocal music is also one of the characteristic features according to which listeners all over the world recognize the style of Antonio Vivaldi, the prominent Italian violinist, music teacher and the great composer of the Baroque epoch.

Works Cited

Barbier, Patrick. (2003). Vivaldi’s Venice. Souvenir Press Ltd.

Heller, Karl. (1997). Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice. Portland, OR: Amadeus Press.

History World. (2008). History of Venice: Venetian Decline – 16^th – 18^th centuries. Web.

Kolneder, Walter. (1970). Antonio Vivaldi: His Life and Work. Edited by Bill Hopkins. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Krantz, Allen. (2008). The Classical Archives: Antonio Vivaldi. Biography. Web.

Landon, H. C. Robbins. (1996). Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.