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Antonio Vivaldi
An Annotated Bibliography
Stacy Cody
Academic affiliation: Oklahoma State University
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"Antonio Vivaldi (1678- 1741)." The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. Sadie, Stanley ed. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1994. Classical Music Pages. created by Matt Boynick. 1996. 10 October 2000. 12 October 2004.
<http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/vivaldi.html>. This site is a section out of The Grove (as it is called for short), which is a series that contains information about musical periods, styles, common practices, specific compositions, and composers. Moreover, this site is a bit easier to read than many of the articles. Its purpose is to aide students and musicologist in music research. This site provides a brief biography on Vivaldi. It also provides some information about the amount of pieces he composed. This site helps in the fact that it gives straightforward time periods for when Vivaldi was working for the Pieta. Therefore, it helps in determining where Vivaldi was when he wrote the Gloria composition.

Arnold, Denis. "Orphans and Ladies: The Venetian Conservatories (1680-1790)." Proceedings of the Royal Music Association 89th Sess. (1962-1963): 31-47. In this article Arnold discusses the development of musical training in the Venetian hospitals and orphanages. He discusses how the musical training in these hospitals enhanced the lives of the girls that lived there. The girls were trained by some of the most dominant musicians of the time. These musicians included people such as Giacomo Spada, Giovanni Porta, and Antonio Vivaldi. The girls became a staple for music in Venice. Furthermore, the training in the conservatories was of such high caliber that noble families started to send their own daughters there, for a fee, to be trained by the girls there. The fact that Vivaldi would have been writing music for these girls at the time he wrote his Gloria is significant in an analysis of the piece.

Arnold, Denis. "Vivaldi's Church Music: An Introduction." Early Music 1.2 (1973): 66-74. Arnold strongly compares the church music of the early 18th century to the operatic music of the time in this article. "The operatic idiom was the natural means of expression for most composers of time: they would have been incapable of sincerity if they had consciously avoided it"(66). Vivaldi was no exception to this, is the point that Arnold stresses through out his article. Arnold speaks frequently of the Pieta, the orphanage in which Vivaldi was employed off and on again. The orphanage is were a great number of Vivaldi's sacred pieces were written. Knowing that Vivaldi was writing for young women and in the operatic style tells a lot about the structure and nature of the works he wrote there.

Landon, H.C. Robbins. Vivaldi Voice of the Baroque. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1993. Landon gives a very in-depth analysis of Vivaldi's compositions. He compares and contrasts various works and provides sources for some of these compositions. This book is helpful because of its extreme detail and clarity. In terms of its terminology, this book is defiantly for experts in musicology. However, the book is not too wordy to where that someone with a slight knowledge of music theory would not be able to understand it. The analysis that Landon provides aides in the determination of whether or not the Gloria composition was written for the Pieta. Landon also provides possible reasons for the Gloria's popularity.

Pincherle, Marc. "Vivaldi and the "Ospitali" of Venice." The Musical Quarterly 24.3 (1938): 300-12. In this article Pincherle examines the process of Vivaldi's orchestral development during the time he was at the Pieta. Pincherle talks about the Pieta as being a laboratory for Vivaldi to experiment in. The article seems to imply that Vivaldi used the choir and orchestra at the Pieta as tools to test out new techniques and to analyze his own pieces. Pincherle suggest that the Pieta, though not the sole element behind Vivaldi's development, was a place in which he could realize his full potential. This is helpful in the analysis of the Gloria in that it explains how Vivaldi used the choir and orchestra of the Pieta and can explain why he composed certain movements in the way that he did.

Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. "Music at the Pieta before Vivaldi." Early Music 14.3 (1986): 373-78, 381-82, 385-86. Selfridge-Field states that while Vivaldi's contributions to the Pieta where important, they in of themselves were not the reason for the Pieta's fame. Selfridge-Field states that the training in the conservatories had already reached an altitude of high esteem well before Vivaldi's appointment there. She talks about the young women of the orphanage traveling around performing as opera singers and performing in the homes of the nobility. The musicians of the Pieta were well known and highly praised for their talent. Selfridge-Field also talks about the instrumentalist at the conservatory. The virtuous talent of these girls, as depicted in this article, is most likely the reason for the difficult passages found in the orchestra part of many of Vivaldi's compositions. The girls would have had to have been extremely well trained prior to his employment for him to have considered such parts.

Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. "Vivaldi's Esoteric Instruments." Early Music 6.3 (1978): 332-38. Selfridge-Field discusses in this article the development of instruments and their effect on Vivaldi's compositions. At times Vivaldi would have to wait for instruments to come in from other countries. There were several improvements made to instruments during Vivaldi's time and this changed his terminology and the way he composed. There were also several types of unusual instruments that appeared during this time for which Vivaldi composed pieces. Knowing what changes and conditions Vivaldi had to deal with during the years he was composing the Gloria helps in knowing why he composed the way he did. This article goes in depth about this factor that was in play during this period.

Talbot, Michel. "Vivaldi and Rome: Observations and Hypotheses." Journal of the Royal Music Association 113.1 (1988): 28-46. Talbot suggest in his article that Vivaldi was influenced by the Roman style during his stays in Rome. In this article Talbot contradicts claims that Vivaldi was exploring styles outside of northern Italy during his middle years. He claims that, when compared to other composers of the time and common practice at the time, Vivaldi stayed within Venetian and Roman styles. This is helpful because during this time was the greatest flux of Vivaldi's employment at the Pieta. It is also the time in which the Gloria was written. The fact that Vivaldi may have been influenced by the Roman style is imperative to an analysis of this composition.

Talbot, Michel. "Vivaldi Conference." Early Music 19.3 (1991): 494-95. This article is about a conference held to review newly found works, which may have been written by Vivaldi. Talbot discusses the debate and obsession with authorship. He talks about the distinguishing marks of Vivaldi, from his handwriting to letters he had written and the type of paper that was used. This was helpful in that it told which pieces where of debate and when they were approximately written. This helps in knowing what type of works he was writing around the same time as the Gloria. There is also the fact that knowing for whom these pieces were written aides in discovering who the Gloria was written for.

Talbot, Michel. Vivaldi. London: J.M. Dent and Sons LTD, 1978. This book is helpful because Talbot writes about the Gloria specifically within it. He talks about the sources that influenced the Gloria and material that was borrowed from G.M. Ruggieri. Talbot goes into a detailed analysis of the work; its progressions, thematic material, the relationship between the choir and orchestra, and the style. This when used with the other sources is very useful in investigating for whom the Gloria was written. This book can be used to compare the style of the Gloria to pieces written for the Pieta and pieces written for other purposes. Knowing the style and structure of the piece in relation to other pieces helps in this inquiry.


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