| Contents |
A city, its people, and music. Music and society in Venice: a few preliminaries. Omnipresence of music in Venice ; Supremacy over Naples ; Aims of this book -- Music everywhere at every moment. Music, art of the people ; Astonishment of foreigners at the extent of its practice ; The barcarolles ; A people who expressed themselves in music -- Can we really know Vivaldi?. Portrait of a city and its people. Demography of Venice in the time of Vivaldi ; The different social classes and their hierarchy ; The nobility and the doge ; Interactions between the social classes -- On some Venetian lifestyles. The arrival of an outsider in Venice, his feelings of strangeness (urbanism, calendar, times of day) ; The gondoliers, women and courtesans ; Difficult contacts between the nobility, ordinary people and foreign visitors ; Licentiousness and gambling -- Feast days and ritual as guarantees of stability. A plethora of ritual feast days ; Their division into three categories: immoveable feasts (Christmas, etc.) moveable feasts (Ascension and the marriage with the sea) and 'extraordinary' feast days (coronation of a doge, enthronement of a patriarch) -- Carnival, quintessence of the Venetian spirit. Six months of carnival in three periods ; The taste for wearing masks ; The games on Carnival Thursday, the bulls on Carnival Sunday, the madness of Shrove Tuesday -- Summary of the 38 immoveable religious feast day in Venice -- The ospedali, or musical fame for the poorest of people. The four ospedali: orphanages and conservatories. Remote origins of the four ospedali ; Their place in the city and what remains of them today ; The aims of these institutions -- Organization and social life in the ospedali. Admission of poor children and orphan girls ; Population of these institutions ; Management, 'choir' girls and 'working class' girls ; Discipline and outings -- An international musical reputation. Fame of the young girls ; Admiration of foreign visitors ; Concerts, masses, oratorios ; Contribution to Venice and to the ospedali ; Improved social status for the girls but a ban from practising music on leaving ; The love of one boarder for the painter Tiepolo -- Vivaldi and La Pieta. Individual characteristics of La Pieta ; Specialisation of this ospedale in instrumental music ; Performance and distribution of the voices ; Role of Vivaldi and of the various maestri ; The oratorio Juditha triumphans ; The concertos composed for La Pieta and the contribution of the red priest ; His influence on the whole of Europe ; The decline of the ospedali at the end of the eighteenth century -- Sacred music and religious festivals. The religious organisation of the city. The patriarch and the primicerio of St Mark's ; Relationships between the church and the state ; Ordained and lay clergy -- Ordinary people in the great Venetian ceremonies. Highly individual Venetian religious practices ; Magnificent processions and sacred or 'republican' celebrations ; The burial of a doge ; Relaxation of morals in the eighteenth century -- Music at St Mark's and its performers. Originality of the services at St Mark's ; The chapel master, the singers and the musicians ; Intensity of religious life at St Mark's and the organisation of the ceremonies ; Splendour of the processions in the Piazza or during holy week -- Musical and social life in the convents. Freedom of morals in the convents ; Casanova's adventures with a nun ; Masked visitors in the parlour ; Ceremonial festivities in some convents ; Balls and operas in the parlour -- Venetian opera and its public. Venice, opera capital of the seventeenth century. Venetian opera in the seventeenth century and the opening of the first theatres to the general public ; Exceptional role of Monteverdi and Cavalli ; Spirit of these operas and astonishment of foreign visitors -- The theatre audience. The Italian-style auditorium and the mingling of social classes ; The groundlings ; The theatre boxes, real private salons ; Life in the boxes and the multiple pleasures offered by the theatres ; An evening at the opera ; Behaviour of the lower classes and the habit of spitting down from the boxes -- The mechanics of opera production ; Family owners and impresarios ; Décor and production ; Castrati and women singers ; Farinelli in Venice ; Satire on behavior in the theatres ; Vivaldi's operas in their context. Spread of his influence abroad ; Vivald's debuts in opera ; Vivaldi's dependence on second-class theatres ; The singer Anna Giro and her relationship with the red priest ; Vivaldi's journeys ; Vivaldi and the satire of Benedetto Marcello ; Genius and weaknesses of Vivaldi's operatic repertoire -- Musical splendor of the private palazzi. The 'academies? or music at home' Different meanings of the word 'academy' Societies for musicians, the philharmonic academy, the society of Saint Cecilia, the social protection of musicians ; The 'amateur' concerts according to different social classes ; Parties and balls on special occasions -- A party with the Contarini family. The villa and the theatre at Piazzola ; The magnificent fetes of 1679-80 ; The operas, their productions and lighting illuminations ; Ceremonies and receptions at the embassies. Arrivals of the ambassadors ; Luxurious life in the embassies and formal ceremonies ; An evening at the French Embassy -- The art of the 'serenade'. An allegorical mini-opera ; The ambassadors' commissions and the entertainments linked to dynastic events ; Vivaldi and the French embassy -- Epilogue. Death in Vienna. Vivaldi's death certificate ; Reasons for his departure from Venice ; Assessment of his work ; Solitude and poverty of Vivaldi in Vienna ; Subsequent neglect ; Rediscovery of his music in the twentieth century. |
| Abstract |
A detailed evocation of Venice and the city's musical culture that inspired Vivaldi. At the time Venice was, uniquely, a city where all classes mingled in their love of music; aristocrats, gondoliers and the workers met to listen to all types of music. All that is known about Vivaldi's life is included, and all the recent discoveries that have been made about that life (as well as details from Vivaldi's contemporaries). The book captures the hedonistic atmosphere of Venice at the time, already an international tourist destination, and how that was reflected by the mysterious Vivaldi in his baroque music. |
