Vivaldi's StageAuthor(s): Ellen RosandSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 8-30Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2001.18.1.8 .Accessed: 05/05/2011 11:04

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Volume XVIII � Number 1 � Winter 2001The Journal of Musicology © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California

Vivaldi’s Stage

E L L E N RO S AN D

1. The Opera House

A ntonio Vivaldi is a well-known presence inthe history of opera in eighteenth-century Venice. Though bibliograph-ical information is incomplete—a large number of librettos have sur-vived but only some twenty scores—it is clear that he supplied works forVenetian theaters almost annually from 1713 until 1739. Many of themwere designed for the Teatro S. Angelo, where he acted as impresario,irregularly, between 1713 and 1734.1 Though he claimed in 1739 tohave written ninety-four operas, the more likely number is around forty-seven.2 It is dif� cult to judge the impact of these works. But repeatedcommissions and revivals of a number of them in a variety of cities (including Mantua, Rome, Florence, Reggio Emilia, Verona, Ferrara,and Prague) indicate that Vivaldi was among the most sought-afteropera composers of his day.

The site of his most sustained and remarkable achievement, how-ever, was not the Teatro S. Angelo, or any other teatro d’opera, but a lessostentatious, more sheltered space, the Ospedale della Pietà, one of thefour charitable institutions whose musical performances achieved suchprominence during the eighteenth century that they came to rival—even to surpass—those in the opera house. Though he had served as aviolinist at S. Marco earlier, it was at the Pietà that Vivaldi gained his� rst substantial employment as a teacher of violin and viola in 1703,initiating an association that lasted for the better part of forty years.And it was there, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, rather far from S. Angelo,

1 Some twenty of Vivaldi’s operas received their premieres at the Teatro S. Angelobetween 1714 and 1739. Vivaldi also helped manage and wrote operas for S. Moise, aswell as for performances outside Venice, especially in Mantua, where he produced sevenof his operas between 1718 and 1732. See Eric Cross, “Vivaldi,” Grove Dictionary of Opera(London: Macmillan, 1992) 4, cc. 1026–28.

2 See Vivaldi’s letter of 2 January 1739 to Guido Bentivoglio; in Remo Giazotto, An-tonio Vivaldi (Turin: RAI, 1973), 290–91. Cross, “Vivaldi,” lists � fty-two, including severalpasticcios.

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that the composer staged his most signi� cant and best-known works,works belonging to the genre with which his name is virtually synony-mous: the concerto.

Though few composers were equally committed to the two kinds ofinstitutions, the activities at the Ospedale and opera house were actu-ally quite similar in a number of important respects. Both attracted in-ternational audiences drawn to Venice by its reputation for lavish enter-tainments. Both enjoyed the support of the government and patricianpatronage. And both therefore offered a context in which the particu-larly strong connections between politics and art that characterizedVenetian culture were played out. More speci� c links between the twovenues are offered by Vivaldi himself: his concertos, which may alsohave played some role in the spectacle of the opera house, became thecentral character in the drama enacted in the galleries of the Pietà.

Vivaldi was evidently in the habit of performing a concerto at somepoint during the performances of his operas, a sure means of distin-guishing such spectacles from those at competing theaters. Indeed, visitors to the opera in Venice were repeatedly struck by these perfor-mances. In a diary entry of 4 February 1715, the German traveler Johann Friedrich Uffenbach reports having witnessed one of them at S. Angelo:

Toward the end [of the opera] Vivaldi played an admirable accompa-niment as a solo to which, as a conclusion, he appended a fantasiathat left me literally terrorized, because one like it was never playednor ever will be played, since with the � ngers [of his left hand] hereached a point just a hair away from the bridge, so close that therewas no room for the bow; and he did this on all four strings, with fugalpassages and with incredible speed. He shocked everyone with this.But I cannot say that it charmed me because it was not as pleasing tohear as it was artfully played.3

The piece itself may very well have been a concerto (it was an accom-panied solo) with an elaborate � nal cadenza.4 On a second visit to

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3 “. . . gegen das ende [of the opera at S. Angelo] spielte der vivaldi ein accompag-nement solo, admirabel, voran er zu letzt eine phantasie anhing die mich recht er-schrecket, denn dergleichen ohnmoglich so jemahls ist gespielt worden noch kanngespiehlet werden, denn er kahm mit den Fingern nur einen strohhalm breit an den stegdass der bogen keinen platz hatte, und das auf allen 4 saiten mit Fugen und einer ge-schwindigkeit die unglaublich ist, er suprenierte damit jedermann, allein dass ich sagensoll dass es mich charmirt das kan ich nicht tun weil es nicht so angenehm zu horen, alses kunstlich gemacht war.” Quoted in Eberhard Preussner, Die musikalischen Reisen desHerrn von Uffenbach Aus einem Reisetagebuch des Johann Friedrich A. von Uffenbach aus Frank-furt a. M. 1712–1716 (Kassel and Basel: Bärenreiter, 1949), 67. Uffenbach’s commentson Venice may be found on pp. 63–72, especially 67–72.

4 Walter Kolneder suspects that this might have been the concerto in D major RV212, because the cadenza of the last movement displays most of the extraordinary effects

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S. Angelo, however, some two weeks later (19 February), Uffenbach complained that Vivaldi played only a “very short solo air” (perhaps theslow movement of a concerto?).5

When Uffenbach returned a third time to the opera house, possiblyon 4 March, the penultimate day of carnival, Vivaldi played the violinagain, probably between the acts of the featured opera (“damit vermut-lich die Intermedien ausfüllend”). This time, however, Uffenbach wasunreservedly enthusiastic, lavishing extravagant praise on the composer-performer, especially in comparison to an oboe soloist, “who played inan unintelligible manner.” Evidently, the featuring of solo instrumentsat the opera, particularly the violin as played by the impresario himself,offered an additional attraction to the audience, a special appeal in thecompetitive world of Venetian opera houses.6

This is inadvertently con� rmed by Vivaldi himself in a letter of1737 to the Marquis Guido Bentivoglio regarding a possible commis-sion in Ferrara. Responding to criticism of his indecorous behavior asan impresario, which apparently stood in the way of the commission,Vivaldi declared, irately: “I never hang around at the door of the the-ater, which I would be ashamed to do . . . and I never play in the orches-tra, except for the �rst night, because I would not deign to ply the trade of‘suonatore’ ” (italics added).7

Uffenbach seems to have � xated on Vivaldi’s performances, whichappear to be the primary basis on which he judged the success of hisevenings at the opera. In a period when the composer of an opera stillplayed “second � ddle” to both the librettist and the singers, Vivaldi’s

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mentioned by Uffenbach. See Walter Kolneder, “Pro� lo biogra�co di Antonio Vivaldi,” in Antonio Vivaldi da Venezia all’Europa, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro and Giovanni Morelli(Milan: Electa, 1978), 13. Also idem, Aufführungspraxis bei Vivaldi (Leipzig: Breitkopf undHärtel, 1955), 73. Vivaldi apparently wrote and played this piece in 1712 for a celebra-tion in Padua—one of its two manuscript sources bears the rubric Concerto fatto per lasolennità della S. Lingua di S. Antonio in Padova 1712 (see Cesare Fertonani, La musica stru-mentale di Antonio Vivaldi [Florence: Olschki, 1998], 384–85).

5 “Zu allem Ungluck spielte Vivaldi selbst auch nur eine sehr kleine air solo aufseiner Violine” (Preussner, Die musikalischen Reisen, 68). Could this have been an obbli-gato aria?

6 “Vivaldi spielt wieder Solovioline, damit vermutlich die Intermedien ausfüllend.Vom Gegenspiel Vivaldis ist Uffenbach diesmal aber ohne Ruckhalt begeistert. Ein Haut-boist, der ebenfalls als Solist auftritt, bliebt dagegen mit seiner krausen Musik vollig un-verstandlich. Die Tatsache, dass konzertante Musik solistich in die Oper eingebaut wird,ist in hochstem Grade bemerkenswert. Zweifellos war es eine Art Notbehelf des Geigen-virtuosen Vivaldi, und wenigstens auf diese Weise beim veneziansichen Publikum auch alsGeiger zu Geltung zu kommen” (Preussner, Die musikalischen Reisen, 70–71).

7 Giazotto, Vivaldi, 288. Letter of 23 November 1737: “Io mai attendo alla porta,mentre questo mi vergogniarei di fare. . . . Io mai suono in Orchestra, salvo che la primasera, perche non degno di far il mestiere del suonatore.” Vivaldi was accused by one Car-dinal Ruffo of other improprieties as well (to which he responds in the same letter toBentivoglio).

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solo performances were clearly a distinctive feature of his operatic pro-ductions; a hook to attract audiences, they also represented a kind ofsignature or af� rmation of his authorship. But they were obviously onlyancillary to the main event. At the Pietà, in contrast, Vivaldi’s concertoswere the featured entertainment. Though interspersed with vocal worksof various kinds, including motets and oratorios, it was the concertosthat occupied center stage.

2. Santa Maria della Visitazione o della Pietà

The Ospedale della Pietà and the other three os-pedali (the Incurabili, the Derelitti, and the Mendicanti8) began asfoundling hospitals in which, under the auspices of the government, orphans of both sexes were housed, clothed, fed, and taught to read, to write, and to pray. And while the boys received an education thatprepared them to enter various trades as apprentices (woodworking,shipbuilding, printing), the girls, depending on their abilities, were in-structed either in the arts of sewing, embroidery, and lace-making, or inmusic, by resident teachers. Members of the musical group, called the�glie di coro, eventually served in the chapel choir and orchestra. Whenthey had become suf� ciently skilled, they were given the responsibilityof teaching the younger girls.9

11

8 Their full names are Santa Maria della Visitazione o della Pietà, Gesu Salvatoredegli Incurabili, Santa Maria dei Derelitti detto anche Ospedaletto, and San Lazzaro e deiMendicanti. See, inter alia, Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 31.

9 Michael Talbot (“Sacred Music at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice in the Timeof Handel,” Händel Jahrbuch XLVI [2000], 125–56; 127) distinguishes between foundlingsat the Pietà and orphans and waifs, who were accommodated elsewhere. Among the mostrecent studies of music at the ospedali are Berthold Over, Per la Gloria di Dio: SolistischeKirchenmusik an den venezianischen Ospedali im 18. Jahrhundert (Bonn: Orpheus-Verlag,1998); Marinella Laini, Vita musicale a Venezia durante la Repubblica. Istituzioni e mecenatismo(Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1993); Jane Baldauf-Berdes, Women’s Musicians of Venice:Musical Foundations, 1525–1855 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); and Bernard Aikemaand Dulcia Meijers, Nel regno dei poveri. Arte e storia dei grandi ospedali veneziani in età mo-derna 1474–1797 (Venice: Arsenale, 1989). Earlier studies fundamental to this topic in-clude Denis Arnold, “Orphans and Ladies, the Venetian Conservatories (1680–1790),”Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association LXXXIX (1962–63), 31–48; idem, “Instrumentsand Instrumental Teaching in the Early Italian Conservatories,” The Galpin Society JournalXVIII (1965), 72–81; Giuseppe Ellero, J. Scarpa, and C. Paolucci, eds., Arte e musica al-l’Ospedaletto: schede d’archivio sull’attività musicale degli ospedali dei Derelitti e dei Mendicanti diVenezia (secc. XVI–XVII) (Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1978); Giancarlo Rostirolla, “L’or-ganizzazione musicale nell’ospedale veneziano della Pietà all’epoca di Vivaldi,” Nuova ri-vista musicale italiana XIII (1979), 168–95; and M. V. Constable, “The Venetian ‘Figlie delcoro’: Their Environment and Achievement,” Music and Letters LXIII (1982), 181–212;and Denis Arnold, “Music at the Ospedali,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association CXIII(1988), 156–67.

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Although the Venetian government exercised ultimate jurisdictionover the ospedali, as charitable institutions, their day-to-day activities,the setting of admission standards, rules of behavior, and the hiring ofteachers, were regulated and some of the expenses underwritten by individual elected governing boards made up of members of the nobleand citizen classes.

Originally conceived as an aspect of the moral and religious educa-tion of the girls, the musical activities of the ospedali came to absorb increasing attention—as well as funds—during the � rst half of the eigh-teenth century. Vocal instruction was supplemented by training on agrowing number of instruments, and not only were paying students admitted, in order to make certain that the choirs and instrumentalbands were adequately staffed, but music masters too, by necessity, wereincreasingly hired from outside the walls of the ospedali. Indeed some of the best-known � gures in the history of Venetian music, not only Vivaldi, served as music teachers at these institutions—among themLegrenzi, Gasparini, Pollarolo, and Galuppi. They had various tasks: themaestro del coro took charge of the singers, while the maestro dei concertiwas responsible for the instrumentalists. Either of these positions wouldhave involved supplying new music for instruction and performance.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the ospedali were anobligatory stop on the Venetian leg of the Grand Tour. To quote fromthe oft-reprinted guidebook of Giovanni Battista Albrizzi, the Forestieroilluminato, “all year long the presence of foreigners in these piousplaces was great, there being not a single important person visitingVenice who left before honoring them with their presence.”10 Travelers’diaries are � lled with descriptions of the marvels of the girls’ perfor-mances, which were evidently quite numerous: nearly every Saturday,Sunday, and feast day there was music at all of the ospedali, with espe-cially elaborate services reserved for occasions of particular importanceto each of them,11 or for the visits of foreign dignitaries. Periodically, all

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10 “. . . grande è in tutto l’anno il concorso de’ Forastieri, non essendovi alcun per-sonaggio cospicuo, che giunto in Vinegia, sen parta senza aver onorato col suo interventoanche questo Pio luogo [in addition to the other ospedali].” Giovanni Battista Albrizzi,Forastiero illuminato. Intorno le cose più rare e curiose antiche e moderne della citta di Venezia e del-l’isole circonvicine (Venice, 1740). The reference here is to the Incurabili: quoted from theedition of 1796 (Venice: Francesco Tosi), 254–55.

11 The Visitation at the Pietà, the feast of S. Lorenzo at the Mendicanti. The four os-pedali apparently alternated in presenting afternoon musical events on the four Sundaysof each month (Berdes, Women Musicians of Venice, 132). It was the Mendicanti’s turn onthe 4th Sunday, whereas the second was reserved for the Derelitti. Over, Per la Gloria diDio, 41–59, examines the feast-calendars of the four ospedali, which indicate the variousoccasions on which music was called for, though not speci�cally instrumental music.Much of Over’s data comes from the 1712 edition of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, Guida de’ forestiere, initially published in 1697, and followed by nearly forty subsequent, often

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of the ospedali joined together to celebrate a special occasion, such as aroyal visit or political victory.12 In general, however, the relation amongthem seems to have been one of competition rather than cooperation.Most reports agree that of the four, the Pietà was the most outstanding,particularly for its instrumental music. I quote from the remarks of onesuch report, by Joachim Christoph Nemeitz, a Saxon jurist, who visitedVenice in 1721:

One should not willingly miss the music at the four ospedali. It takesplace every Saturday, Sunday, and holiday, beginning around four inthe afternoon and lasting until a little after six. In these four ospedali. . . poor and orphaned children are maintained at the expense of theRepublic, and they . . . are educated to fear God in reading, writing,and above all in music by singing teachers specially hired for the pur-pose. And they also learn to embroider and sew. Among these os-pedali, the Pietà is now certainly the most important. Here about 900girls are assisted and educated, all of them orphans, except for somesent there by poor families. These young girls are educated in the ma-terial described above, and it is extraordinary to see how many ofthem excel not only in vocal music but in instrumental music as well.They play the violin, cello, organ, theorbo, and even the oboe and� ute like masters.13

Other visitors were equally impressed by the Pietà, and especially by thevariety of instruments on which the girls excelled. The French juristCharles de Brosses, writing in 1739, noted their performance on violin,� ute, organ, oboe, cello, and bassoon: in short, he concluded, “there is

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updated editions, which contains detailed information on services with music at all theospedali. See Talbot, “Sacred Music,” 136–37.

12 This was the case in 1740, for the visit of Friederich Cristian of Poland, ElectoralPrince of Saxony, documented in Giazotto, Vivaldi, 306–7. See also Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Pallade veneta (Venice: Fondazione Levi, 1985), 312, n. 1. On the music for thisvisit, see below, n. 28.

13 “La musica nelle chiese dei quattro Ospedali, cioè alla Pietà, ai Mendicante, al-l’Ospedaletto e agli Incurabili non si tralascia volentieri di sentirla. La si fa tutti i sabati,domeniche e giorni di festa; incomincia alle quattro circa del pomereggio e dura � na apoco dopo le sei. In questi quattro ospedali vengono mantenute a spese della Republicapersone povere e deboli di salute, come pure bambine povere a trovatelle, e queste ul-time vengono educate al timor di Dio, a leggere, a scrivere e sopratutto nella musica permezzo di insegnanti di canto appositamente assunte, ed imparano anche a � lare e a cu-cire. Fra questi l’ospedale della Pietà è ora certamente il più importante; qui sono assi-stite ed educate circa novecento fanciulle, tutte orfanelle, fatta eccezione per quelle chesono mandate lì come pensionanti dalle famiglie povere. Queste fanciulle [. . .] vengonoeducate nelle materie che si sono descritte più sopra, ed è straordinario vedere comemolte di esse eccellano non solo nella musica vocale ma anche in quella strumentale, esuonino da maestro il violino, il violoncello, l’organo, la tiorba, e persino l’oboe ed il� auto.” Joachim Christoph Nemeitz, Nachlese besonderer Nachrichten von Italien (Leipzig:Gleditsch, 1726), 97, entry of 1721. Italian text from Venezia Vivaldi, exhibition catalogue(Venice: Al� eri, 1978), 64.

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no instrument, however unwieldy, that can frighten them.”14 And theequally enthusiastic Albrizzi � eshed out his description, quoted earlier,with a few added details regarding the instruments:

What distinguishes the Pietà from the other ospedali is that on solemnfeast days, they usually perform an instrumental concert [un concertodi stromenti], mostly woodwinds, which is truly admirable. It is com-posed of violins, violette, trombe marine, corni da caccia, oboe, � ute,recorder, timpani and a harp, which from time to time plays alone sodelicately and so consonantly with the other instruments, that onecannot hope to hear anything of this kind either more harmonious ormore perfect.15

Indeed, the range of instrumental instruction available to the girlsat the Pietà during this period, the period of Vivaldi’s association withthe institution, far exceeded that for any of the other ospedali. In addi-tion to violin, taught from 1703, instruction on other instruments wasavailable as follows: oboe from 1707, clarinet from 1716, cello from1720, transverse � ute from 1728, lute, clavicembalo, and corno di cac-cia, from 1747, and timpani from 1750.16 It is hardly surprising givenhis connection with the institution that Vivaldi, unlike his contempo-raries, would have written music featuring most of these instruments assoloists.

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14 “Celui des quatre hôpitaux où je vais le plus souvent, et où je m’amuse le mieux,et l’hôpital de la Piété; c’est aussi le premier pour la perfection des symphonies. . . . Aussichantent-elles comme des anges, et jouent du violon, de la � ute, de l’orgue, du hautbois,du violoncelle, du basson; bref, il n’y a si gros instruments qui puissent leur faire peur”(Charles De Brosses, Lettres familières écrits d’Italie . . . en 1739 et 1740 [Paris: Poulet-Malassiset De Broise, 1858] I, 144).

15 “Quello per altro in cui esso si distingue dagli altri, si è, che nei giorni solenni sisuol fare un concerto di stromenti la maggior parte da � ato che realmente è ammirabile.E composto di Violini, Violette, Trombe marine, Corni da caccia, Oboè, Traversiè, Flauti,Timpani, e di un’ Arpa che di tratto in tratto suona a voce sola così delicatamente, ed ècosì unisona cogli strumenti, che non si può sentire cosa nè più armoniosa, nè più per-fetta in questo genere” (Albrizzi, Forastiero illuminato, 115).

16 See Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi(Oxford: Blackwell, 1975, 3rd ed., Dover, 1994), 43–44; idem, “Vivaldi’s Esoteric Instru-ments,” Early Music 6 (1978), 332–38. Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 35, lists the fol-lowing instruments as having been played at the Pietà: chalumeau, psaltery, violad’amore, viola all’inglese, mandolin, clarinet, along with the more common violin, cello,recorder, transverse � ute, oboe, bassoon, theorbo, and organ. For a comparison of the in-strumental teaching available at the four ospedali, see Selfridge-Field, Pallade veneta, Ap-pendix C: table of maestri and organists. Documents from all four institutions indicategeneric payments to teachers of solfeggio, maniera, strumenti, coro, and canti, but onlythose from the Pietà include payments to individual instrumental teachers.

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The Ospedale della Pietà had long occupied a group of buildingson the Riva degli Schiavoni. Although some work had been done onthe church in the late seventeenth century that affected the space forthe musicians which was over the main altar, by the eighteenth centurythe musical facilities had become woefully inadequate, especially incomparison to the other three ospedali, whose churches had been builtor recently rebuilt by prominent Venetian architects,17 and for whichnew music rooms had been constructed. Accordingly, in 1723 a requestwas made to construct, laterally to the existing choirloft (“coro”), twosmaller ones (“coretti”), in order to provide additional space for themusicians.18 These were to be covered by gilded iron grillwork. At thecorners where the new choirlofts joined the old one, openings werespeci� ed to allow the musicians to see the conductor.19

Completed by 1724, this modi� cation was evidently insuf� cient. Adecision to rebuild the entire facility was taken in 1727, and the com-mission given to the architect Giorgio Massari. Giambattista Tiepolo,the major Venetian painter of the time, received the commission forthe fresco decoration. Although not actually completed until 1760,twenty years after Vivaldi’s death, the new structure was conceived to ac-commodate the vocal and instrumental ensembles as they existed dur-ing his tenure at the Pietà. Singing galleries were constructed on eitherside of the nave.20

Likewise, though not � nished until 1755, the musical ensembleportrayed in Tiepolo’s ceiling fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin pre-dictably re� ects that in use in Vivaldi’s day. Both more detailed andmore varied than the standard depictions of musical angels, theperimeter of the fresco is taken up with singers and instrumentalists.Eleven instruments are depicted, including horn, organ, viola, kettledrum, oboe, chitarrone (rather than the more usual theorbo), double

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17 Sansovino, Scamozzi, and Longhena. See Deborah Howard, “GiambattistaTiepolo’s Frescoes for the Church of the Pietà in Venice,” The Oxford Art Journal IX(1986), 11–28 and Gastone Vio, “La vecchia chiesa dell’Ospedale della Pietà,” Infor-mazioni e studi vivaldiani VII (1986), 72–84.

18 For details regarding the building of these “coretti,” see Giazotto, Vivaldi,374–75, who cites the relevant documents; also Michael Talbot, Vivaldi [London: Dent,1993], 15, n. 2.The date of this request, 2 July, by the way, was the same as the date of Vivaldi’s contract to supply two concertos per month (see Talbot, Vivaldi, 53, citing thecontract with Vivaldi, which is reproduced in Giazotto, Vivaldi, 256). The connection be-tween these two documents—request and contract—is made by Vio, “La vecchia chiesa,”78.

19 “[che] resti un maggior sporto . . . per dar additto alle � glie s’essercitaranno inquelli di poter ben osservar la Maestra farrà la battuda in Choro.” Quoted in Vio, “La vec-chia chiesa,” 78.

20 For the interior of the Pietà, showing the galleries, see Aikema, Nel regno deipoveri, 203 and 205.

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bass, trumpet, violin, drum or tambourine, and cello.21 It is surely nocoincidence that the full range of instruments for which the Pietà wasso well-known is represented in this unusual fresco, and that though Vi-valdi was long dead, that varied instrumentarium showcased in his con-certos had become part of its heritage.22

3. Maestro de’ concerti

As already observed, Vivaldi was employed at thePietà off and on for nearly forty years, beginning in 1703, when he was� rst hired as a teacher of violin, and ending shortly before 1740 whenhe left Venice for Vienna, where he died the following year.23 His teach-ing duties, which also involved the purchasing and maintenance of instruments, soon expanded to include composition as well. Thoughnot of� cially appointed as such by the Ospedale until 1716, he adver-tised himself as maestro de’ concerti as early as 1709, on the title-page ofhis second printed collection, the violin sonatas, Op. 2. Aside fromsome motets and at least one oratorio, his chief responsibility as a com-poser was to provide works in which his violin pupils could display theirabilities as performers.24 The concerto seemed ideally suited to such apurpose. Indeed, it is clear that Vivaldi’s exploration of the concerto,and the unprecedented number and variety of his works in that genre,were inspired by his position at the Pietà.

It is dif� cult to know precisely how many or which of Vivaldi’s con-certos were actually written for the girls at the Pietà. They must havenumbered in the several hundreds, however, since in addition to thepieces he provided in his capacity as maestro de’ concerti, the governingboard of the Ospedale began speci� cally acquiring concertos from himon a regular basis starting in 1723, when they agreed to purchase twoper month on the condition that he direct their rehearsal when inVenice (three or four such rehearsals were speci�ed) and, when absent,

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21 Howard, “The Pietà,” 21, lists twelve instruments, but she may have miscounted.22 For a color illustration of the Tiepolo fresco, see Keith Christiansen, ed., Giambat-

tista Tiepolo, 1696–1770 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996), � g. 113.23 Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 36, divides Vivaldi’s career at the Pietà into � ve

periods: 1. 1 Sept 1703–24 Feb 1709 (“maestro di violino, viola all’inglese on 17 Aug.1704); 2. 27 September 1711 (“maestro di violino”)–26 March 1716; 3. 24 May 1716(“maestro de concerti”)–1717; 4. 2 July 1723 (to provide concertos 2 per month, in ab-sentia) at least till 1729; 5. 5 Aug 1735 (“maestro de’ concerti”)–28 March 1738 (compo-sition of concertos ‘per ogni genere d’instrumenti,” teaching, and rehearsals). The rele-vant documents are listed in Michael Talbot, Vivaldi: Fonti e letteratura critica (Florence:Olschki, 1991), 57–61. They are transcribed in Giazotto, Vivaldi, 351–83.

24 He was apparently responsible for providing sacred music when there was no of� -cial maestro de coro on the books. See Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 38.

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that he not charge for postage.25 And we do know that by 1729 thenumber had already reached more than 140.26

Some of these can be more precisely identi�ed by the fact that theybear the names of the individual performers for whom they were in-tended.27 Others bear rubrics indicating the occasion and date onwhich they were performed at the Pietà. These include several to cele-brate the Feast of S. Lorenzo and three concertos for multiple instru-ments played in honor of the visit of the Electoral Prince of Saxony in1740.28 It can probably be assumed, in any case, that the many concer-tos for exotic instruments in solo or combination—such as lute,chalumeau, � ute, and mandolin—were designed to spotlight the oddinstrumentarium for which the Pietà was so well-known.29

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25 “. . . per conservar il detto Choro nel credito sin’hora riportato si rende biso-gnoso il provedimento de Concerti da Suono, et espongono l’incontro tengono doppo lemolte diligenze usate di haverne due al mese dalla ben nota attivita del ReverendissimoDon Antonio Vivaldi come n’hanno sortito due per la corrente festivita di questa nostrachiesa, e pero. Si manda parte che resti impartita facolta alli Sudetti Signori Governatorinostri di poter accordar con il sudetto Vivaldi per il tempo che si tratenira in questa Dominante, et anco se le sortisse nel tempo di sua absenza, col mezzo delle missioni,quando riusisse di conseguirli senza l’aggravio del posto, perche d’esso siano contribuitili due concerti al mese che s’essibisce di dare . . . [questi Signori Governatori] crede-ranno conveniente per li due concerti fatti, e di accordarle l’onorario d’un cecchin l’unoper quelli ch’andera facendo con l’obligo pero al detto Vivaldi di portarsi personalmentealmeno tre, o quatro volte per concerto ad’instruire le Figlie della maniera di ben con-durli, quando si trovera in Venetia, nel che haveranno la carita li detti Signori Governa-tori di rilasciar gl’ordini propri, e piu risoluti alle Maestre di Choro accio sempre hab-bino a tratenersi presenti quando Capitera il detto Reverendo Vivaldi per instruire le� glie, come tengono obligho con tutti li Maestri perche le Figlie stesse si mantenganonella dovuta disciplina, e senza distrationi appro� ttano dell’occasione ben utile che lororesta procurata” (document of 2 July 1723 in Giazotto, Vivaldi, no. 68, p. 374). For ananalysis of the passage see 247–48.

26 This number, from Talbot, Vivaldi, 167, is based on � gures in the Venetianarchives (ASV Osp. Busta 700 and Reg. 1005).

27 Most prominently the violinist Anna Maria. Other performers named in the man-uscripts include Chiara (or Chiaretta, another violinist, also named by De Brosses) andTeresa (a cellist). For further details on the speci�c works performed by these women,see below, note 34.

28 RV 286, 556, and 562 were written for the Solennità di San Lorenzo (the � rst wasplayed by Anna Maria); RV 581 and 582 for the Assumption of the Virgin (also played byAnna Maria). The three concertos composed for the visit of the Prince of Saxony are allfor unusual combinations of instruments. They include RV 540 (“Concerto di Violad’Amore, e Liuto col ripieno di moltissimi Strumenti”), 552 (“Concerto a Violini obbli-gati con Eco”), and 558 (“Concerto con tutti li strumenti”). Along with the Sinfonia RV149, these three concertos are found in a manuscript now in Dresden (Landesbiblio-thek). According to Selfridge-Field, Pallade veneta, 312, n. 1, the performances took placeat the Pietà on 21. III. 1740, and she adds the interesting information that the same visitalso gave rise to Albrizzi’s guidebook Forestiere illuminato (cf. above, n. 10).

29 The dif� culties of determining which concertos were written for the Pietà arelargely owing to problems of dating the manuscripts. The most comprehensive recent attempt to deal with dating is Paul Everitt, “Towards a Vivaldi Chronology,” in Nuovi studivivaldiani. Edizione e cronologia critica delle opere, ed. Antonio Fanna and Giovanni Morelli

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4. Concerto

As a genre, it would seem that the concerto was ideally suited to the musical needs of the Pietà. Its essential structuralprinciple, that of alternation (or argument) between two contrastinggroups of instruments—either a solo or small group against a largerone, or even two equal groups in opposition—offered the perfect occa-sion for displaying the generally high level of ensemble playing as wellas the special talents of individual girls in solos. Indeed, visitors to thePietà were equally impressed by both. De Brosses, whom we have al-ready heard from, commented on the “perfection of ensemble,” the“tightness of execution.” Only at the Pietà, he adds, does one hear “thatsharpness of attack” so falsely vaunted at the Paris Opera. De Brossesgoes on to describe the playing of two particular violin soloists, Chia-retta, “surely the best violinist in all of Italy [le premier violon d’Italie]if Anna Maria [from the Ospedaletto] isn’t even better.” And, � nally, henotes the existence of a new kind of music, completely unknown inFrance, which he describes as “grand concertos where there is no prin-cipal violin.”30

Although it would be too much to conclude that Vivaldi owed hispassion for the concerto solely to his employment at the Pietà, there isreason to think that his very � rst composition for the Ospedale—and

18

(Florence: Olschki, 1988), 729–57. Various writers have suggested that the material forthe Pietà would have included the pieces in Vivaldi’s early publications as well as others inmanuscript that were composed before 1717 (when his name disappears from the Pietàdocuments) and after 1723 (when his name reappears). It is likely that concertos inwhich cadenzas are absent or merely indicated in shorthand were played by the com-poser, while those in which they were fully written out were probably destined for hispupils (Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 388). One can also imagine that many of theconcertos for odd instruments would have been designed for the Pietà, including at leastsome of the bassoon concertos (a bassoon soloist is mentioned by De Brosses, Lettresfamilières [letter 18 to M. de Blancey quoted above]); those for viola d’amore (datingfrom around 1720, shortly after the instrument was � rst played at the Pietà); those for vi-oloncello, likewise after 1720, when two cello teachers were hired at the Pietà (Fertonani,La musica strumentale, 405), mandolin, oboe, and trumpet, though probably not those forhunting horn, an instrument that was not taught at the Pietà until 1747. On the variety ofinstruments at the Pietà, see also Talbot, “Sacred Music,” 140.

30 De Brosses, Lettres familières, I, 144: “Quelle raideur d’exécution! C’est là seule-ment qu’un entend ce premier coup d’archet, si faussement vanté à l’opéra de Paris. LaChiarretta seroit sûrement le premier violon d’Italie, si l’Anna Maria des Hospitalettes[sic!] ne la surpassoit encore. J’ai ete assez heureux pour entendre cette derniere. Qui estsi fantas[ti]que, qu’a peine joue-t-elle une fois en un an.” [De Brosse may have associatedAnna Maria with the wrong Ospedale. Or else there were two famous violinists with thesame name!] “Ils ont ici une espece de musique que nous ne connaissons point enFrance. . . . Ce sont de grands concertos ou il n’y a point de violino principale. . . .” Vivaldicomposed 44 such works, concertos without soloists scored for four-part strings and con-tinuo, which Talbot categorizes as “symphonic” concertos or “concerti a quattro” (Vivaldi,127–28).

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one of his earliest works—was a concerto: A description of a novel in-strumental composition (“con tale novità d’idee”) performed in con-junction with a Vespers service in May 1704 strongly suggests as much.31

But it was undoubtedly the requirements of his position that inspiredVivaldi to explore the myriad possibilities inherent in the concerto, possibilities of form as well as scoring. By far the greatest number arefor a single solo instrument (primarily violin) and orchestra; but hewrote a number for two or more solo instruments as well as some, suchas those described by de Brosses, for two string orchestras, with or with-out soloists. One can easily imagine the girls moving up gradually fromtheir positions as ensemble players to the rank of soloist as their facilityimproved.

While it is dif� cult to generalize about Vivaldi’s concerto form, todescribe the typical Vivaldi concerto, certain standard features can beidenti�ed.32 Generally consisting of three movements, two in a fasttempo enclosing a slower one, most concertos (not only Vivaldi’s) werestructured to display the soloist. First movements especially, but also � -nal movements, were cast in ritornello form, in which the full orches-tra, or tutti, plays its initial material (or ritornello) several times duringthe course of the movement, in alternation with a solo or small groupof instruments, which usually has its own musical material, more dif� -cult, more brilliant, more virtuosic. This was a form that was designedto set the soloist in relief. It is no coincidence that contemporary oper-atic arias also utilized ritornello form. Indeed, we might view the con-certo in general, and the ritornello form in particular, as a kind of plat-form or stage on which the soloist was featured as the star.

Not only the ritornello form, of course, but the solo material itselfwas designed to show off the technical abilities of the soloist. Rapid pas-sage work, double and triple stops, the exploitation of high positions,close to the bridge: all of these features distinguished the soloist fromthe group. The most famous violin soloist at the Pietà was the afore-mentioned Anna Maria. She was singled out in a number of travelers’

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31 Pallade veneta, entry for the week of 17–24 May 1704: “Domenica le � glie delchoro della Pietà fecero sentire nel loro vespero una sinfonia d’istromenti ordinata perogn’angolo della chiesa di tant’armonia e con tale novita d’idee che resero estatiche lemeraviglie, e fecero supponere che tali componimenti venghino dal cielo che dagl’uo-mini.” See Selfridge-Field, Pallade veneta, 80–81 and 251–52; also idem, “Music at thePietà before Vivaldi,” Early Music XIV (1986), 373–74. Selfridge-Field notes the coinci-dence of the date with Vivaldi’s early tenure at the Pietà and wonders whether the de-scription does not refer to one of the hybrid performance arrangements implied by thediverse number of soloists in his earliest set of concertos, Op. 3 (1711), which, she says,were issued with what once seemed super�uous part-books.

32 Talbot, Vivaldi, 107–8 offers a nice discussion of the meaning of concerto in Vi-valdi’s day, based on Mattheson.

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reports. In 1726 she was termed “especially famous” by Nemeitz, “a per-former to whom few virtuosos, even of our own sex, can compare inplaying this dif� cult and delicate instrument.” And he goes on to de-scribe a particular performance arranged for him:

One of the singers of this hospital, whom I met shortly before my de-parture from Venice, did me the favor of arranging a special perfor-mance in the church, at the end of the usual music, of an extraordi-narily beautiful concerto [grosso] with 20 violins plus organ, cello andtheorbo all with just girls, which was incomparably well performed,and Anna Maria demonstrated in a remarkable way, especially in herconcertino violin part, that she can play with both a precise and deli-cate � st.33

Though we don’t know which piece Nemeitz heard on this occasion, wecan glean an impression of Anna Maria’s extraordinary skill as a violin-ist from the concertos Vivaldi dedicated to her, as well as from thosefound in a partbook she used that has survived among the Pietà manu-scripts. More remarkably still, we know from the composer’s dedicationto her of several concertos for viola d’amore that she was also a virtuosoon that instrument;34 and if we can believe the account in an anony-mous poem of ca. 1730, she may have played other instruments as well:

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33 “Es hat eine von den Cantoren dieses Hospitals, mit welcher ich bekannt war,kurz von meiner Abreise von Venedig, mir zu Gefallen in der Kirchen zu Ende ihrer ordi-nairen Music ein extraordinair schön concert von 20. Violinen nebst Orgel, Violoncellound Tiorben, lauter Mädgens, machen lassen, welches unvergleichlich wohl executirtwurde, und hat die Anna Maria demahls sonderlich in der partie von der Violino Con-certino gewiesen, dass sie so wohl mit einer fertigen als delicaten Faust spielen könne”(Nemeitz, Nachlese, 97. Italian text in Venezia Vivaldi, 64). The custom at the Pietà of asung service being followed by the playing of a concerto is con� rmed by an anonymousGerman correspondent of Johann Mattheson in 1725: “Wenn das Singen zu Ende ist,wird a la pietà allezeit ein vortref� iches Concert gespielt, welches immer so wohl ver-dienet gohöret zu werden, als eine ganze Oper.” See Johann Mattheson, Critica musica, 2vols. (Hamburg, 1722–26), ii, 288, quoted in Talbot, “Sacred Music,” 137–38.

34 The partbook, with her name on the cover, probably dating from 1726–27, con-tains 31 concerti, 24 of them by Vivaldi. Though they were not all speci�cally dedicatedto her, she obviously played them. Indeed, she probably premiered them. Further on thispartbook, see Michael Talbot, “A Vivaldi Discovery at the Conservatorio ‘Benedetto Mar-cello’,” Informazioni e studi vivaldiani III (1982), 3–12; Faun Stacy Tanenbaum, “The PietàPartbooks and More Vivaldi,” Informazioni e studi vivaldiani VIII (1987), 8–11; idem, “ThePietà Partbooks—Continued,” Informazioni e studi vivaldiani IX (1988), 5–12; and Ferto-nani, La musica strumentale, 76–78. The pieces speci�cally dedicated to Anna Maria in-clude, for violin: RV 762 and 286 (the autograph is entitled Concerto per la solennità di S.Lorenzo): for viola d’amore: 393, 397. The partbook provides the unique source for sev-eral others: 772, 775, 771, 773, 774 (774 and 775 are scored for violin and organ), andit provides unique variants for four other concertos that are preserved elsewhere (270a,267a, 213a, 179a). The most elaborate violin parts, which give a true sense of her extra-ordinary virtuosity, are those in 285, 581 and 582. Anna Maria, whose name appears inthe Pietà documents from 1712 on, became “maestra del violino” and “maestra de coro”

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Anna Maria plays the violin in a manner that transports her listenersto paradise. Only angels play like that. One would search the entireVenetian domain, nay, the entire globe, in vain, to � nd a hand capableof wielding the bow or touching the � ngerboard as she does. I do notexaggerate, but tell the truth as a gentleman: What professor plays theharpsichord or violin, cello, viola d’amore, lute, theorbo, or mandolinas well as she?35

The author then goes on to describe Anna Maria’s physical appearancewith equal enthusiasm, a preoccupation altogether typical of observersof the phenomenon of the ospedali—though not all such observationswere as � attering; indeed, the unattractive appearance of the girls wasusually deemed more worthy of comment.36

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in 1737. She died in 1782 at the age of 86. In addition to Nemeitz, she is mentioned byJohann Gottfried Walther, in Musikalisches Lexicon oder musicalische Bibliothec (Leipzig:Deer, 1732), 37. For a complete list of the pieces played by Anna Maria, see Jane Baldauf-Berdes, “Anna Maria della Pietà: The Woman Musician of Venice Personi�ed,” in CeciliaReclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music, ed. Susan McClary, Susan C. Cook, and Judith Tsou (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois, 1994), 134–55, n. 16. The pieces destined forother performers include RV 222, 790, 792, 794, for “Chiara” or “Chiaretta,” and RV 787and 788 for “Teresa.”

35 Annamaria “il violin suona in maniera/che chi l’ode imparadisa,/se pur la sul-l’alta sfera/suonan gli Angeli in tal guisa./Brava in lei del par la mano/e del manico edell’arco/l’altra egual si cerca invano/Nello stato di San Marco./Anzi in tutto l’orbe intero/non ha egual femmina o uomo/Non esagero, ed il vero/dico ben da galan-tuomo/Come lei qual professore/suona cembalo o violino,/violoncel, viola d’amore,/liuto, tiorba o mandolino?/Queste invero son virtù/Da eternar chi le possiede/pure inlei vi è ancor di più/e son qui per farne fede./Aureo cor senza dopiezza,/� do, grato, edamoroso/bella assai, ma cui bellezza/non fà l’animo orgoglioso./Biondo crin, guancie dirose/sen di neve, occhi di foco/nobil tratto e spiritose/le maniere in serio, e in gioco./Ma non più perché potreste/del suo bel credermi amante/ed io ciò forse sareste/non as-sai del ver distante./Ciò però sia per non detto/e torniam sul seminato/vien poi . . . vien. . . sia maledetto . . ./chi vien mai. Son imbrogliato./Ah, si, si . . . Vien Bernardina” etc.(“Sopra le putte della Pietà di coro” [I-Vmc, Cicogna Cod. 1178, cc. 206r–212v], stanzas47–53). (It is worth noting that this poem devotes many more stanzas to Anna Maria thanto anyone else.) This version of the text was � rst published in Francesco Degrada,Un’inedita testimonianza settecentesca sull’Ospedale della Pietà (Turin: Edizioni del Convegno,1965). It can also be found in Laini, Vita musicale, 101–05. Another version, “Sopra le� glie di coro dell’ospitale della Pietà del 1730,” was published in Bartolomeo Dotti, Satireinedite, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1797), ii, 93–106. Despite its published date, Fertonani, La mu-sica strumentale, 77, gives the late 1730s for the date of this poem. A number of the � glie,it seems, played more than one instrument. Chiaretta, Anna Maria’s successor, played theviolin, viola d’amore, and organ; she also sang and conducted (see Talbot, “Sacred Mu-sic,” 141–42). Welcome new biographical information on the girls is available in MickyWhite, “Biographical Notes on the ‘Figlie di Coro’ of the Pietà Contemporary with Vi-valdi,” Informazioni e studi vivaldiani XXI (2000), 75–96.

36 Rousseau, for instance, in the Confessions (ca. 1743): “Sophie . . . she washorrible. . . . Cattina . . . she was blind in one eye. Bettina . . . the smallpox had dis� guredher. Scarcely one was without some considerable blemish. . . . Ugliness does not excludecharms, and I found some in them. . . . My way of looking at them changed so much thatI left nearly in love with all these ugly girls” (quoted in Marc Pincherle, Vivaldi [New York:W. W. Norton, 1957], 20). For some later descriptions, see Laini, Vita musicale, 91–101.

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The same poem offers a compelling description of a typical audi-ence at the Pietà: There are “those who applaud and make a racket,those who faint,” those who “crane their necks and stare” at the soloist,those who “bite their � ngers and leave teeth marks on them; those whoshift their glasses on their noses and pay strict attention; those who ex-plode in heretical curses if someone coughs for a second; those whotwist around to see better; those who clasp their hands to their breasts,as if wounded; . . . and those who make a great noise after a cadenza byspitting in appreciation.37

Despite their display of virtuosity, there was one crucial differencebetween the prime donne in the opera house and those at the Pietà, a dif-ference that visitors to the Ospedale did not fail to notice. At the Pietà,Anna Maria and her companions made their effect essentially throughthe ear, for, as we have already noted, the balconies in which they per-formed were screened by iron gratings that obscured them from theview of their audience. This was a source of some amazement—as wellas dismay—on the part of numerous visitors, many of whom made apoint of mentioning the fact. As one of them reported (in 1730):

Every Sunday and holiday there is a performance of Musick in theChapels of these Hospitals, Vocal and Instrumental, perform’d by the young Women of the Place; who are set in a gallery above, and(though not profess’d) are hid from any distinct View of those below,by a Lattice of Iron-work. . . . their Performance is surprisingly good;and many excellent voices there are among them; and it is somewhatstill more amusing, in that their Persons are conceal’d from view.38

And Jean–Jacques Rousseau, writing about his Venetian experience inhis Confessions (in 1743), was even more explicit: “What grieved me was those accursed grills, which allowed only tones to go through andconcealed the angels of loveliness of whom they were worthy. . . .”39

And � nally, Samuel Sharp (in 1767):

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37 “Sopra le putte della Pietà di coro,” stanzas 64–69: “Vel dirò: rido da pazzo/quando in chiesa osservo attento/or chi applaude e fa schiamazzo/or chi cade in sveni-mento./A misura che ora questa/delle � glie canta, or quella/veggio l’uno alzar la testa/estar � sso sempre in ella./Vedi un tale che di corde/cinger suole i � anchi e il dorso/chedal gusto il dito morde/e vi lascia impresso il morso./Chi s’accomoda gli occhiali/soprail naso e stassi attento,/ch’in bestemmie ereticali/dà, se alcun tosse un momento./Chi sitorce e chi la mano/tiene al sen, che par ferito/chi ad alcun che gli è lontano/fa a lodarcon gli occhi invito./Talor doppo una cadenza/fan sputando un gran rumore/e coi sputiall’eccellenza/lode dan delle cantori.”

38 Edward Wright, Some Observations Made in Traveling through France, Italy . . . in theYears 1720, 1721, and 1722 (London, 1730), i, 79.

39 Pincherle, Vivaldi, 20.

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The founders of this charity had, as it appears, too exalted an opinionof the power of musick; for, however beautiful the girls may be, theytrust only to their melody, being intercepted from the sight of the au-dience, by a black gauze hung over the rails of the gallery in whichthey perform; it is transparent enough to shew the � gures of women,but not in the least their features and complexion.40

This was partly a matter of modesty, for although they were notnuns, there were many rules prohibiting the girls from displaying them-selves: rules of conduct and dress. For instance, they were forbidden toleave the Ospedale without special dispensation.41 Social contacts, evenwith family members, were strictly limited. No visitors were allowed onthe premises without speci� c permission from the governors.42 And thegirls were prohibited from wearing jewelry or bright colors.43 But, ofcourse, such rules were made to be broken, and such prohibitions onlywhetted the curiosity of visitors to the ospedali, stimulating a preoccu-pation with the girls’ appearance.

With the performers barely visible, the music reached the audi-ence’s ears as pure, disembodied sound; the bodies of the girls whoproduced these marvelous sounds had to be imagined, but the act ofimagination was very much part of the theatrical effect. It is importantto emphasize that the impression made by Vivaldi’s concertos was al-most exclusively aural—reinforced, undoubtedly, by the power of sug-gestion, by the very idea that girls were producing these marveloussounds. The composer exploited this situation wonderfully with hisconcertos for multiple, unusual instruments, in which not only thetechnical abilities of the girls, but the esoteric instruments of the Pietà

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40 Samuel Sharp, Letters from Italy, 2nd ed., 1767, 28; quoted in Denis Arnold, “Or-phans and Ladies,” 41–42.

41 Giazotto, Vivaldi, 348: 10 September 1713: permission given for “una giornata disolano fuori di Laguna, conoscendosi conveniente di dare qualche respiro alle � gliole.”(Doc. 37.)

42 Giazotto, Vivaldi, 349: 30 April 1723: “a nessuno sarà concesso di introdursi “nelli Luochi ove abbitano le nostre � glie” per ascoltar musica—anche nel caso di “so-getti esteri”—se prima non si saranno debitamente avvertiti i governatori sopra il Coro(doc. 65). Such permission was granted for the Prince of Modena and his entourage in1723 (doc. 66), for the Borghese princes (doc. 69), for “dame e cavalieri” from the Mi-lanese house of Trivulzio (doc. 72), and for the Contessa Grimaldi of Genoa (doc. 86),and the Elector of Saxony (doc. 108).

43 See Laini, Vita musicale, 114, for rules from the Derelitti dating from the mid-seventeenth century concerning the girls’ dress and behavior, including their promisenot to sing in the opera house after they left the ospedale. Presumably similar rules werein effect at the Pietà. Of all the inmates, the girl musicians were the best cared-for. Theprincipal solo singers were given special treats such as extra food and garlic; when themost talented were ill they received bonus rations of asses’ milk or extra � rewood or weresent to the country for a change of air.

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were on display. The revelation in brief solo passages of one rare speci-men after another from the Pietà’s armory of instruments must havesurprised and delighted audiences.

Three such concerti (RV 540, 552, 558) were performed at a spe-cial occasion already mentioned, the visit in 1740 of Friederich Chris-tian, Elector of Saxony. One of them, RV 558, features paired recorders,chalumeaux, theorbos, mandolins, violins in “tromba marina,” and acello.44 It is characteristic of these pieces that the contrast within the ri-tornello movements is primarily one of timbre or sonority rather thanmusical material. This suggests that even Vivaldi’s choice of musical ma-terial for his concertos, in particular, his exploitation of color as an ele-ment of form, may be linked to the invisibility of the performers forwhom they were written. Even the spatial dimension of the works (“or-dinat[i] per ogn’angolo della chiesa”) was designed to create a theatri-cal effect, to actively engage the ears of his audience.45

If the genre of the concerto was not actually born in the setting ofthe Pietà, in Vivaldi’s hands it certainly underwent its most signi� cantdevelopment there. In all their magni� cent variety, the concertos hedesigned for the girls, and their performance at the Pietà, surely stimu-lated the enormous demand from travelers to Venice for pieces of theirown.46 Indeed, it may even be that the remarkable European success of these works, which began in 1711 with the publication of Op. 3 inAmsterdam, was inspired by what one modern writer has termed “theparticular charms of the famed performance venue” that was the Os-pedale della Pietà.47

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44 The “tromba marina” was a form of bowed monochord that produced a buzzingsound on account of the vibrations of its bridge. Violins had to be altered, of course, inorder to imitate those sounds. See Selfridge-Field, “Vivaldi’s Esoteric Instruments,” 335–36; Michael Talbot, “Vivaldi e lo chalumeau,” Rivista italiana di musicologia XV (1980),153–81; a description of the unusual orchestration of these pieces is provided in L’Adriafestosa. Notizie storiche . . . del soggiorno di S.A.R. ed Elettorale Federico Cristiano . . . Ove si spie-gano tutte le Funzioni Pubbliche e Private fatte a divertimento di S.A.R. l’Anno 1740. Come pure li3 Componimenti in Musica delle Figlie dei 3 Pii Luoghi Pietà, Mendicanti, e Incurabili (Venice:Occhi, 1740), referred to in Laini, Vita musicale, 105, n. 9.

45 The expression comes from a description of one of Vivaldi’s � rst works at thePietà. Cf. above, n. 31.

46 Among such visitors were the aforementioned Uffenbach, who commissionedconcertos from the composer on 6 March 1715, receiving ten of them three days later(Preussner, Die musikalischen Reisen, 71); and the German violinist Johann Georg Pisendel,who studied with Vivaldi during 1716–17, to whom Vivaldi dedicated � ve sonatas and sixconcertos, and who brought some forty Vivaldi manuscripts back to Dresden, where theyhave remained. A number of other musicians came to Venice not to buy concertos but tostudy violin or composition with the maestro: Johann David Heinichen, Gottfried Hein-rich Stolzel, and Daniel Gottlob Treu. See Fertonani, La musica strumentale, 52–53.

47 Laurence Dreyfus, Bach and the Patterns of Invention (Cambridge: Harvard, 1996),43. Dreyfus wonders more speci�cally “whether the rush of excitement about Vivaldi in

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5. Scherzi di fantasia

How many concertos did Vivaldi actually write? Tradition has handed down the number 600—which can probably betraced to a comment attributed to either Igor Stravinsky or Luigi Dal-lapiccola, namely, that Vivaldi did not write 600 concertos but one con-certo 600 times:48 something of an exaggeration on all counts. Thenumber is certainly wrong, though not by much—the most recent cata-logue of his works lists some 472 concertos. But as anyone who has evertried to teach a class on the typical Vivaldi concerto discovers, sooner orlater, there is no such thing. Each one of his concertos is frustratingly,surprisingly, intriguingly, exasperatingly different.

As we have seen, by virtue of their function at the Pietà, at least, Vivaldi’s concertos were designed to feature a spectacular variety of in-struments and textures—single soloists, multiple soloists, solo groups—and that variety is compounded by variety of formal structure. Althoughmost of the concertos open with a fast movement in ritornello form,the shape of that form, in particular, the relationship between soundbodies within it, is hardly standardized: the number and nature of alter-nations, the length of individual sections, the extent of contrast be-tween solo and tutti material, the degree of virtuosity in the solo part—all these things varied tremendously.

The same variety also extends to the expressive character of theseworks. Although the conventional three-movement format, with its twofast movements surrounding a slow one, proposes a rather standardizedaffective structure, an alternation of extroverted, positive expressionwith more pensive, introverted internalized emotions, some movementsdo their expressive work more effectively than others. They signifythrough a set of conventional associations: fast tempo, major key, bril-liant � guration are associated with joy, exultation, victory; slow tempo,minor key, harmonic dissonance, long lyrical lines, with sadness, loss,lament.

But Vivaldi occasionally—and famously—moves beyond such vagueexpressive categories to make his music more literally articulate, invok-ing an extra-musical dimension through titles and/or associated texts.49

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northern Europe was not connected in some way to a scarcely concealed titillation pro-ceeding from well-circulated rumors of a cloistered orchestra of girls making exciting mu-sic” (45).

48 Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (New York:Doubleday, 1959), 84. See Pincherle, Vivaldi, 68.

49 Cesare Fertonani, Antonio Vivaldi: La simbologia musicale nei concerti a programma(Pordenone: Studio testi, 1993) is a thorough and fascinating study of these works. Morethan half of the contents of Op. 8 (1725) bear such titles. This may suggest some particu-lar interest on the part of the dedicatee, the Bohemian Count Wenceslas, of Morzin, or,

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Some pieces re� ect generalized natural phenomena: La tempesta dimare, the development and then receding of a storm at sea, or La notte,the darkness of night. The expressive aim of several other titled concer-tos is more general still: the portrayal of a speci� c mood or psychologi-cal state, such as Il riposo or Il piacere, or a character, La pastorella, whilethe titles of still others, such as La caccia or Il Gardellino, are keyed tocertain onomatopoetic qualities in the music—the imitation of huntinghorns or bird sounds.50 In addition to describing a general plot orsome speci� c subject matter, in all of these instances the titles serve tojustify or even stimulate particularly exaggerated treatment of the in-strumental forces —which without such justi� cation might seem exces-sive, even gratuitous.51

Some of these works follow a literal narrative. Three of the � vemovements of La tempesta, for instance, bear descriptive rubrics—Fan-tasmi, Il sonno, Sorge l’Aurora—suggesting the outlines of a plot. By farthe best example of narrative in his works is, of course, The Four Seasons,his most famous compositional tour de force. In this four-concerto cycle, the narrative is provided by four sonnets, which were publishedalong with the four concertos in Op. 8.52 Beyond the individual lines ofthe sonnets given at the appropriate points in the printed parts, capitalletters mark successive stages in the unfolding of the seasonal cycle.Some of the letters correspond to single poetic lines, while others cor-respond to two or more. A third kind of rubric is found sporadically inthe Seasons concertos. Often coinciding with the individual stagesmarked by letters, these spell out the meaning of particular musicalpassages more speci� cally than the corresponding poetic lines. Most in-famously, at the beginning of the second movement of Spring, a barking

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more likely, of the publisher La Cène, of Amsterdam. For the dedicatory letter, see PaulEverett, Vivaldi. The Four Seasons and Other Concertos, Op. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1991), 8–9. It is possible that many of the � fty-odd concertos with extra-musical implications were written for the Roman Cardinal Ottoboni, well-known for hispatronage of Corelli, Scarlatti, and Handel in the early years of the 18th century and, es-pecially, for his leadership of the Arcadian Academy during this period. See Michael Tal-bot, “Vivaldi and Rome: Observations and Hypotheses,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association CXIII (1988), 28–46.

50 What Fertonani calls the “repertorio ornithologico,” namely trills, repetitions ofsingle notes or small intervals, absence of accompaniment (Fertonani, La simbologia,126).

51 In addition to Fertonani, La simbologia, passim, see Luca Zoppelli, “Tempeste eStravaganze: fattori estetici e recettivi in margine alla datazione dei concerti ‘a pro-gramma’,” in Nuovi studi vivaldiani. Edizione e cronologia critica delle opere, ed. Alberto Fannaand Giovanni Morelli (Florence: Olschki, 1988), 801–10.

52 For speculation as to whether the sonnets were written before or after the concer-tos, and by whom, see Everitt, The Four Seasons, 67–70 and especially Fertonani, La sim-bologia, 57–63.

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dog (“Il cane che grida”) is juxtaposed against the murmur of thefronds and plants (“Mormorio di frondi e piante”), coinciding with theletter F and lines 9–11 of the sonnet.

With three different ways of marking, Vivaldi makes sure that thedetails of his musical narrative will be clear. But to whom? To those who could see the score: the dedicatee of the volume in which theseworks were published, and perhaps the performers—though the spe-ci� c rubrics and poetic lines were not included in the original manu-script parts for these concertos. Even if the audience had been pro-vided with the texts of the sonnets, it would have been dif� cult forthem to follow the precise evolution of Vivaldi’s plot. The most hecould hope for from his listeners would be a general attentiveness tothe overall drama of the kind portrayed in his other programmaticworks. Though the Seasons represents a unique monument in Vivaldi’soeuvre, it is worth considering the vocabulary of meaningful gesturesdeveloped in its four concertos as a key to interpreting other works aswell, even those lacking titles.

With all of the formal and expressive variety displayed in theseworks, it is dif� cult to agree with the claim, however ironically in-tended, that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 600 times. And yet, thatquip does contain a grain of truth. It acknowledges something impor-tant—and distinctive—about Vivaldi as an artist: his facility, a facilitythat is nothing short of astonishing.

His contemporaries marveled at his rapidity of execution, one ofthem noting that he could compose a concerto in all its parts morequickly than a copyist could write them out.53 And he is reported tohave ful� lled private commissions for multiple concertos in recordtime, sometimes within a matter of hours.54 This velocity is con� rmedby his autograph manuscripts, which indicate that he wrote his concer-tos straight through to the end, sometimes in a single sitting. Even theremarkable variety in his treatment of ritornellos subsequent to the � rsthas been ascribed to his compositional frenzy, his disinclination to lookback at what he’d already written, preferring to rely on memory andcontinuous inspiration. And the solo episodes, too, give the impressionof being devised on the spot, emerging almost instantaneously from apool of boundless creative energy.55 Such inventive virtuosity belonged

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53 De Brosses, Lettres, I, 143: “c’est un vecchio, qui a une furie de compositionprodigieuse. Je l’ai oui se faire fort de composer un concerto, avec toutes ses parties, pluspromptement qu’un copiste ne le pourroit copier.”

54 Ten in three days, according to Uffenbach (see above, n. 46).55 See Peter Ryom, Les Manuscrits de Vivaldi (Copenhagen: Antonio Vivaldi Archives,

1977), 27–28; also Marc Pincherle, Antonio Vivaldi e la musique instrumentale, 2 vols. (Paris:Floury, 1948), 34 and Walter Kolneder, Antonio Vivaldi: His Life and Work, trans. Bill Hop-kins (London: Faber and Faber, 1970), 79–85.

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to the category of “maraviglia dell’arte,” an expression much used inthe realm of Baroque aesthetics in reference not only to the wonders ofthe work of art but to the spectacle of the creative act itself.

Vivaldi’s concertos are permeated by a sense of improvisation, asense of being elaborations on an implicit model. We might regardthem as repeated variations on a theme, inventions on the basic struc-ture of the concerto form, even as that basic structure itself was beingdeveloped. Fundamentally the same—they are all concertos, in somesense playing with ideas of opposition, of contrast and conciliation—yetmarvelously different, Vivaldi’s concertos are a product of his “fecondafantasia,” his fruitful fantasy—to borrow from the connoisseur andcourtier Francesco Algarotti’s appreciation of another great eighteenth-century Venetian artist, Vivaldi’s slightly younger contemporary, Giam-battista Tiepolo.56

Such a view of Vivaldi’s approach to the concerto, as a demonstra-tion of art, is encouraged not only by the nature of the pieces them-selves but, more explicitly, by the titles af� xed to several of his concertopublications: L’estro armonico (Op. 3), La stravaganza (Op. 4), Il cimentodell’armonia e dell’invenzione (Op. 8), La Cetra (Op. 9). Intended to en-hance the appeal to a music-buying public, these titles were also de-scriptive of Vivaldi’s intention as an artist. In each of them the elementof invenzione is signaled, underlined. “Estro” is another term for “capric-cio,” “stravaganza” a synonym of “fantastic” or “unusually imaginative”;“cetra,” the cithera or lyre, Apollo’s instrument, is an evocative me-tonymy for “poetic inspiration.” Individually, each of these collectionsof twelve concertos, assembled for publication by the composer, proba-bly of various dates, represents a conspectus of Vivaldi’s concerto style,a series of variations on a basic musical topic. Collectively a presenta-tion of artistic self, they are a public af� rmation of aesthetic principle.

Invenzione, capriccio, fantasia: these were synonyms that emphasizedthe fertility of the imagination. Traditionally, the instrumental fantasiawas understood as a composition whose form and invention spring“solely from the imagination and skill” of the composer. Fare di fantasiaor di capriccio meant to demonstrate one’s particular powers of inven-tion by deliberately going beyond the rules of art. Vivaldi’s concertopublications participate in a long history of musical publication of

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56 Opere del Conte Algarotti . . . , 9 vols. (Livorno, 1764–65), 8: 379–80. Letter fromAlgarotti to Count Heinrich von Brühl (1743): “gli ornamenti e le espressioni nasce-ranno agevolmente dalla feconda fantasia,” quoted in Adriano Mariuz, “GiambattistaTiepolo: Painting’s True Magician,” in Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770), ed. Keith Chris-tiansen (NY: Abrams, 1997), 8, n. 25.

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variations on a basic theme, publications that often bore titles such asDiversi capricci. 57

These titles turn up in the visual arts as well, particularly in connec-tion with series of prints by some of the most important draughtsmenof the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Callot, della Bella, Piranesi,Tiepolo. Most relevantly for our discussion are two series of prints byTiepolo that were eventually published as Vari capricci and Scherzi di fantasia. Like Vivaldi’s concertos, Tiepolo’s etchings are demonstrationsof his inventive art, variations on themes only implicit in their formalstructures and suggestive characters—archaeological fragments, tur-baned magi, and nocturnal creatures. Also like Vivaldi’s concertos, theyare highly evocative, images that, exploiting the conventions of their artand in� ecting traditional associations, suggest meaning and invite in-terpretation.58

Vivaldi’s demonstration of art is, in a sense, ademonstration of the skill of his hand. His own legendary perfor-mances on the violin, in the opera house, found their ultimate realiza-tion in the works he wrote for the girls of the Pietà. The steady demandfor new works there—works that could utilize and spotlight both soloand ensemble playing of the girls—inspired him to exercise his powersof invention, to explore the generic potential of the concerto. Al-though not all of his concertos were speci� cally written for them, theimage of the girls remained indelibly attached to Vivaldi’s creations, asa crucial ingredient of their broader appeal. The title-page of a manu-script now in Dresden, which preserves the concertos composed for thevisit of the Prince of Saxony to Venice in 1740, emphasizes the connec-tion of the works to the girls of the Pietà over the name of the com-poser: Concerti con molti Istromenti Suonati dalle Figlie del Pio Ospitale della

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57 A number of such publications date from the early 17th century. “Capricci” inthis context referred not to any particular formal genre per se but to the freedom of mu-sical treatment, the willful departure from rules of counterpoint, perhaps for the purposeof conveying a particular mood. The Diversi capricci of Ascanio Mayonne (1603, 1609) arecharacterized by their deliberate departure from the rules of counterpoint. In GiovanniMaria Trabaci’s Ricercate, & altre varij Capricci (1615), readers are urged to pay attentionto the spirit of the music. The term was often applied in violin music and became associ-ated with music of a virtuoso character. For an overview, see Erich Schwandt, “Capriccio,”The New Grove (London: Macmillan, 1980), III, 758–59.

58 For these series, see H. Diane Russell, Rare Etchings by Giovanni Battista and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1972). See also KeithChristiansen, “The Fiery Poetic Fantasy of Giambattista Tiepolo,” in Giambattista Tiepolo,275–91, and idem, “Tiepolo, Theater, and the Notion of Theatricality,” Art BulletinLXXXI (1999), 665–92.

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Pieta avanti Sua Altezza Reale Il Serenissimo Federico Cristiano Principe Realedi Polonia et Elettorale di Sassonia, Musica di D. Antonio Vivaldi Maestro deConcerti dell’Ospitale Sudetto. In Venezia nell’anno 1740. Indeed, the girlsinvisibly performing their miracles on the stage of the Pietà were themask projecting Vivaldi’s creative persona; they effectively establishedhis image as the creator of independent instrumental music on thelarger stage of Europe.

Yale University

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