Philip Peters responds to me:

>>But for me, Vivaldi offers mediocre melodies...
>
>Bach thought quite differently about Vivaldi's melodies, he even used a
>number of them
>in his own work.

Beethoven took a next-to-nothing theme of Diabelli's and created a
masterpiece.  Does this necessarily mean that Beethoven thought highly
of the Diabelli theme?  There can be a large number of reasons why one
composer borrows from another.  I do wonder if we have any documented
quotes from Bach relating to his opinion of Vivaldi.

Don Satz
[log in to unmask]