Juozas Rimas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>What can you say about Vivaldi's music? Like many, I know the Four Seasons
>and I like them.  However, after finding out Vivaldi has written the total
>of almost 50 concerti, 39 operas, 23 symphonies etc, I started to worry
>about the relation of quantity and quality.

Vivaldi is a good composer to me in that sence that he mastered that
ubiquitous melodic invention.  He almost always - na, I haven't heard *all*
his works, but anyway - has a nice melody basing his movements on, and
there are after all composers who complain they have difficulties to invent
a good melody.  Maybe he wrote the same concerto 600 times...  I would
rahter say he invented a good melody 600 times, and thats a great work!
All who has tried composing knows that a good melody doesn't invent itself,
although there might be as many potential melodies as there are stars in
the universe, and to be able to always invent a good melody is a certain
talent IMO, a talent, that deservs appreciation.

>Could you please assure me the seasons are his best work and I don't have
>to bother digging deeper?

I could give a few examples on what I find are true gems in the Vivaldi
collection.  Pardon me for don't including any opera, but I don't know much
about them.

* Sinfonia in C
* Concerto for 2 Flutes, Strings and Cembalo
* Concerto for 2 Trumpets and Orchestra
* "Il Gardellino"
* "Del Ritico"
* Concerto for 2 Oboes, Basson, 2 Trumpets, Strings and Organ
* Glorias

One theme in the sinfonia in C has is very close to that G.F.  Haendel uses
in Fireworks Music; La Rejouissance.  Whom borrowed from whom? (I have no
date on the Vivaldi...)

Mats Norrman
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