Concerto Guide: Vivaldi Concerto for Four Violins

As Vivaldi is probably the most prolific composer of concertos in music history, with 500 to his credit, I want to look at one more of his before moving on. This concerto, written for four violins and small orchestra, was also one admired by J. S. Bach, who did an arrangement of it for four harpsichords and orchestra. Here is the original by Vivaldi in a spirited performance by Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini, director:

Apart from the four soloists, the orchestra itself consists of only nine or ten members in this performance. Here is the first page of the score:

In the Oxford History of Western Music, Taruskin quotes a very different looking score, with many more parts, most of which duplicate other parts. As he doesn't cite a source for his score, I'm not sure why it is laid out the way it is. The one I excerpt from above is found in the Bach Complete Edition, published in 1894. A couple of unhistorical details to note. This music, first published in Amsterdam in 1711, was not published in score as we see above. Instead, it was published as a set of partbooks, i.e. one folio for each instrument. It was hugely popular and Bach undoubtedly obtained a copy. Another unhistorical detail in the performance I posted above: performances in the early 18th century would likely NOT have had a conductor. If Vivaldi were performing the concerto with his students, it is likely that he himself would have conducted while playing the first violin part as well. The "modern" tradition of having a non-playing conductor stand in front, directing every beat, comes later. It was Beethoven, conducting his own symphonies and Berlioz a bit later, who began the tradition of the virtuoso conductor.

Here is the beginning of the arrangement by Bach:

As you can see, apart from changing the key from B minor to A minor and filling in some bass lines, Bach keeps fairly close to the original. Here is a performance of the Bach arrangement. I would have liked one with video, but all that I could find were amateur performances.

One of the interesting things about this concerto, apart from its effervescent energy, is the "four soloists" who are an ensemble in themselves. This kind of concerto, very popular in the early years, is called a concerto grosso. It was soon to be largely replaced by the truly solo concerto, with only one solo instrument. But occasional examples are found later on such as a couple of piano concertos by Mozart for more than one piano, the triple concerto of Beethoven for violin, cello and piano and the Brahms double concerto for violin and cello. Examples in the 20th century are even more rare--apart from the quite different idea of the "concerto for orchestra" the example that comes first to mind is the Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, op. 35 by Shostakovich, but that was likely inspired by the Baroque concerto grosso.