Antonio Vivaldi Rediscovery
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was one of Italy greatest composers but he had never earned the reputation that he deserved to have during his lifetime. Not only he was a great violinist, a concertmaster, and a teacher; he was also known as an extraordinary composer with his significant contributions to the concerto’s development such as Stabat Mater, Magnificant, Gloria and The Four Seasons, his most popular work. Throughout the article Discovering the Rediscovery of Antonio Vivaldi by Miles Dayton Fish, we can see the progress of rediscovering one of the most iconic symbol of classical music and how they were able to bring him closer to the public after almost 200 years that had been forgotten. The rediscovery began with an accidental discovery
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of Vivaldi’s music manuscripts at San Carlo Salesian Monastery near Turin. The director of Turin National University, who was in charge of the manuscripts, contacted Professor Alberto Gentili and asked him to estimate the value of Vivaldi’s works. Gentili found out that what the monks had discovered was one of the greatest musicological discoveries of all time. In the 1720s, Antonio Vivaldi was the role model of a successful Venetian musician.
He was born in low class of the society but later became a priest and increased his family’s standing in Venice. By 1730s, because people were no longer interested in Vivaldi’s outdated music, many opera houses that he was working with decided to end his contract. Vivaldi became broke and even suffered his father’s death at the same time. Soon after that in 1740s, he moved to Vienna where he wished to start his career over again. But not for long, because of the Emperor Charles’s death, opera performance was banned for a year. A year later, Vivaldi died when he was sixty-three years old and was buried at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Many collectors were able to collect some of Vivaldi’s works include The Four Seasons but the majority of his work still remained lost. A century later, a collection of Vivaldi’s works was founded in Hofkirche Cathedral in Dresden, Germany. Because Vivaldi used to have a very close relationship with Jonhann Georg Pisendel, a violist from Dresden, Germany so when Pisendel came back to Dresden in 1717, he brought with him more than forty Vivaldi’s works. Nowadays, the SLB Dresden holds the significant number of Vivaldi’s manuscripts outside of Italy. In order to keep Vivaldi’s manuscripts in the Turin Library and away from the hands of antique collectors and the government, Professor Gentili had to find benefactor to support the purchase of the manuscripts. In 1927, a banker named Mauro Foà purchased the manuscripts and donated them to the Turin Library. The collection was named after his infant son, the Mauro Foà Collection. After researching the manuscripts, Gentili realized many pages were missing in the collection and began his journey of finding the lost portion of the
collection. During his researching, Gentili found out that Vivaldi’s family had sold his manuscripts for a collector called Jacopo Soranzo, then after Soranzo’s death, another collector got the manuscripts and finally sold it to Count Giacomo Durazzo. In 1893, after the manuscripts were moved to Genoa by Durazzo’s nephew, they were divided into two portions for Marcello and Flavio Ingnatius, brothers of Durazzo. The Foà Collection was the portion that Marcello left to the San Carlo Salesian Monastery. The other potion was owned by Giuseppe Mari Duranzzo, son of Flavio Ingnatius. Unfortunately, Giuseppe was not agreed to sell or share his portion to the Turin Library. After three years of negotiation, Giuseppe decided to sell his portion for 70,000 dollars under many conditions, one of that was that prohibited both publication and performance of Vivaldi’s works. Once again, Gentili had to find another benefactor that would help him bring the missing portion back to where it belonged. Filippo Giordano, a textile manufacturer, was willing to fund the purchase of Durazzo’s manuscripts. The collection was also named after his infant son, the Renzo Giordano Collection. Finally, the Vivaldi manuscripts were completed on October 30, 1930. The Turin manuscripts were known as the common name for the Foà Collection and the Giordano Collection at the Turin Library. Even though the Turin manuscripts had been completed, there were many obstacles remained on the progress to bring Vivaldi’s music to the public. First and foremost reason is Durazzo’s stipulation of no publication and no performance. The second reason is the anti-Jewish legislation that allowed the fascists to confiscate Jewish property. In 1938, Gentili was forced to leave his position as an overseer of the Vivaldi Turin manuscripts and also as a teacher at the university. After several years of hiding, Gentili died in Milan in 1954. Ezra Pound, an American poet, and his mistress, Olga Rudge, a violist, took over what Gentili had left off. Rudge served as an executive secretary for Count Guido Chigi Saracini at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy for thirty-two years. Soon with the help of Alfredo Casella, an Italian nationalist, a composer, and a conductor, Academia Chigiano began to gain international success. In 1935, Rudge examined the Turin manuscripts at Turin Library then a year later she published the first catalogue of Vivaldi collection. She also became a first director after she founded the Centro di Studi Vivaldiani. In the mean time, Pound requested Vivaldi manuscripts microfilms form both SLUB Dresden and Turin Library so that he could transcribe and pass them to Count Guido Chigi Saracini at Accademia Chigiano. After that, Pound changed his focus in supporting Rudge’s research on Vivaldi’s works. Alfredo Casella wanted to crate a festival devoted to the rediscovery of Antonio Vivaldi. Casella set the Vivaldi Festival Week on September 16th to 18th in 1939 with Rudge as an assistant for him. On the other hand, Pound had transcribed and represented Vivaldi’s works in Rapallo and later told his experience of rediscovering Vivaldi for The Japan Times and Mail. The festival programs included mostly Vivaldi and Bach works such as the Credo, Gloria, Stabat Mater, and the opera L’Olimpiade. Along with that, Casella focused to feature Vivaldi’s unpublished vocal music and old religious choral works. Having the same fate as the attempt of Gentili to promote Vivaldi’s music to the world, Chigiana’s Vivaldi Festival Week ended only a week before the announce of World War II that had taken all the attention of people in the world and again put Antonio Vivaldi back into the shadow. During the wartime, the Turin Library was damaged and about 150,000 volumes were lost, but luckily the Vivaldi manuscripts were not destroyed. The Vivaldi manuscripts had been moved several time between December 1942 and April 1945, then finally returned to the library in 1945. The same story did not happen to the Vivaldi manuscripts at SLUB Dresden. The allied bombed Dresden and destroyed everything. Fortunately, Pound had been transcribed the Dresden microfilms in 1938 then handed them to Saracini so he could keep them at Accademia Chigiana. Since the war began, Pound was hired to write anti-American speeches that used for radio broadcast. The next following years, Rudge became less active in introducing and promoting Vivaldi’s music to the public. In 1942, despite the facts that he had health issues, Casella was still able to keep promoting little-know composers such as Domenico Scarlatti, Arnold Schoenberg, and especially Vivaldi. After World War II, Antonio Fana continued to keep up the dream of promoting Vivaldi’s music to the world and founded the Italian Vivaldi Institute in 1947. Under the collaboration between Gian Francesco Malipiero and Fana, along with Ricordi Publishing, the edition of Vivaldi’s music was released. On the other side of the world, in United States, Louis Kaufman, an American violist, was one of the first Americans to perform works by Vivaldi in the twentieth century. Kaufman was also known as a concertmaster for Hollywood soundtrack and the first person to use a portion of Vivaldi’s Four Season in a live performance at Carnegie Hall. Kaufman knew that the Four Seasons was not a completed score, so he and his wife moved to Europe and began his journey of finding the complete Four Seasons score. After following many clues, it finally led Kaufman to the Royal Music Conservatory in Brussels, where he got a microfilm of Vivaldi’s work. In 1950, Kaufman won the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of the completed Four Seasons score. Eventually, for once, Antonio Vivaldi was known as an award-wining composer. After Kaufman’s interview with the Continental Daily Mail, many other newspapers started to pay more attention to Vivaldi’s works. In 1957, Vivaldi’s original version of Gloria was published and premiered at the first Festival of Baroque Choral Music of Brooklyn College. The attempt to bring recognition and acceptance to Vivaldi’s music was a long and hard process. It had been passed to many different people, who asked nothing more than to see Vivaldi’s music got the attention that it deserved to have, such as Professor Gentili, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge and Louis Kaufman. Despite our little knowledge of Antonio Vivaldi, we were able to understand the remarkable impact that he had left in the history via the rediscovery of his works. Besides that we also learned a lesson to pay more attention to the music that had been forgotten. We never knew that might be someday we would rediscover one of the best pieces of music that had ever been created.
of Vivaldi’s music manuscripts at San Carlo Salesian Monastery near Turin. The director of Turin National University, who was in charge of the manuscripts, contacted Professor Alberto Gentili and asked him to estimate the value of Vivaldi’s works. Gentili found out that what the monks had discovered was one of the greatest musicological discoveries of all time. In the 1720s, Antonio Vivaldi was the role model of a successful Venetian musician.
He was born in low class of the society but later became a priest and increased his family’s standing in Venice. By 1730s, because people were no longer interested in Vivaldi’s outdated music, many opera houses that he was working with decided to end his contract. Vivaldi became broke and even suffered his father’s death at the same time. Soon after that in 1740s, he moved to Vienna where he wished to start his career over again. But not for long, because of the Emperor Charles’s death, opera performance was banned for a year. A year later, Vivaldi died when he was sixty-three years old and was buried at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Many collectors were able to collect some of Vivaldi’s works include The Four Seasons but the majority of his work still remained lost. A century later, a collection of Vivaldi’s works was founded in Hofkirche Cathedral in Dresden, Germany. Because Vivaldi used to have a very close relationship with Jonhann Georg Pisendel, a violist from Dresden, Germany so when Pisendel came back to Dresden in 1717, he brought with him more than forty Vivaldi’s works. Nowadays, the SLB Dresden holds the significant number of Vivaldi’s manuscripts outside of Italy. In order to keep Vivaldi’s manuscripts in the Turin Library and away from the hands of antique collectors and the government, Professor Gentili had to find benefactor to support the purchase of the manuscripts. In 1927, a banker named Mauro Foà purchased the manuscripts and donated them to the Turin Library. The collection was named after his infant son, the Mauro Foà Collection. After researching the manuscripts, Gentili realized many pages were missing in the collection and began his journey of finding the lost portion of the
collection. During his researching, Gentili found out that Vivaldi’s family had sold his manuscripts for a collector called Jacopo Soranzo, then after Soranzo’s death, another collector got the manuscripts and finally sold it to Count Giacomo Durazzo. In 1893, after the manuscripts were moved to Genoa by Durazzo’s nephew, they were divided into two portions for Marcello and Flavio Ingnatius, brothers of Durazzo. The Foà Collection was the portion that Marcello left to the San Carlo Salesian Monastery. The other potion was owned by Giuseppe Mari Duranzzo, son of Flavio Ingnatius. Unfortunately, Giuseppe was not agreed to sell or share his portion to the Turin Library. After three years of negotiation, Giuseppe decided to sell his portion for 70,000 dollars under many conditions, one of that was that prohibited both publication and performance of Vivaldi’s works. Once again, Gentili had to find another benefactor that would help him bring the missing portion back to where it belonged. Filippo Giordano, a textile manufacturer, was willing to fund the purchase of Durazzo’s manuscripts. The collection was also named after his infant son, the Renzo Giordano Collection. Finally, the Vivaldi manuscripts were completed on October 30, 1930. The Turin manuscripts were known as the common name for the Foà Collection and the Giordano Collection at the Turin Library. Even though the Turin manuscripts had been completed, there were many obstacles remained on the progress to bring Vivaldi’s music to the public. First and foremost reason is Durazzo’s stipulation of no publication and no performance. The second reason is the anti-Jewish legislation that allowed the fascists to confiscate Jewish property. In 1938, Gentili was forced to leave his position as an overseer of the Vivaldi Turin manuscripts and also as a teacher at the university. After several years of hiding, Gentili died in Milan in 1954. Ezra Pound, an American poet, and his mistress, Olga Rudge, a violist, took over what Gentili had left off. Rudge served as an executive secretary for Count Guido Chigi Saracini at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy for thirty-two years. Soon with the help of Alfredo Casella, an Italian nationalist, a composer, and a conductor, Academia Chigiano began to gain international success. In 1935, Rudge examined the Turin manuscripts at Turin Library then a year later she published the first catalogue of Vivaldi collection. She also became a first director after she founded the Centro di Studi Vivaldiani. In the mean time, Pound requested Vivaldi manuscripts microfilms form both SLUB Dresden and Turin Library so that he could transcribe and pass them to Count Guido Chigi Saracini at Accademia Chigiano. After that, Pound changed his focus in supporting Rudge’s research on Vivaldi’s works. Alfredo Casella wanted to crate a festival devoted to the rediscovery of Antonio Vivaldi. Casella set the Vivaldi Festival Week on September 16th to 18th in 1939 with Rudge as an assistant for him. On the other hand, Pound had transcribed and represented Vivaldi’s works in Rapallo and later told his experience of rediscovering Vivaldi for The Japan Times and Mail. The festival programs included mostly Vivaldi and Bach works such as the Credo, Gloria, Stabat Mater, and the opera L’Olimpiade. Along with that, Casella focused to feature Vivaldi’s unpublished vocal music and old religious choral works. Having the same fate as the attempt of Gentili to promote Vivaldi’s music to the world, Chigiana’s Vivaldi Festival Week ended only a week before the announce of World War II that had taken all the attention of people in the world and again put Antonio Vivaldi back into the shadow. During the wartime, the Turin Library was damaged and about 150,000 volumes were lost, but luckily the Vivaldi manuscripts were not destroyed. The Vivaldi manuscripts had been moved several time between December 1942 and April 1945, then finally returned to the library in 1945. The same story did not happen to the Vivaldi manuscripts at SLUB Dresden. The allied bombed Dresden and destroyed everything. Fortunately, Pound had been transcribed the Dresden microfilms in 1938 then handed them to Saracini so he could keep them at Accademia Chigiana. Since the war began, Pound was hired to write anti-American speeches that used for radio broadcast. The next following years, Rudge became less active in introducing and promoting Vivaldi’s music to the public. In 1942, despite the facts that he had health issues, Casella was still able to keep promoting little-know composers such as Domenico Scarlatti, Arnold Schoenberg, and especially Vivaldi. After World War II, Antonio Fana continued to keep up the dream of promoting Vivaldi’s music to the world and founded the Italian Vivaldi Institute in 1947. Under the collaboration between Gian Francesco Malipiero and Fana, along with Ricordi Publishing, the edition of Vivaldi’s music was released. On the other side of the world, in United States, Louis Kaufman, an American violist, was one of the first Americans to perform works by Vivaldi in the twentieth century. Kaufman was also known as a concertmaster for Hollywood soundtrack and the first person to use a portion of Vivaldi’s Four Season in a live performance at Carnegie Hall. Kaufman knew that the Four Seasons was not a completed score, so he and his wife moved to Europe and began his journey of finding the complete Four Seasons score. After following many clues, it finally led Kaufman to the Royal Music Conservatory in Brussels, where he got a microfilm of Vivaldi’s work. In 1950, Kaufman won the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of the completed Four Seasons score. Eventually, for once, Antonio Vivaldi was known as an award-wining composer. After Kaufman’s interview with the Continental Daily Mail, many other newspapers started to pay more attention to Vivaldi’s works. In 1957, Vivaldi’s original version of Gloria was published and premiered at the first Festival of Baroque Choral Music of Brooklyn College. The attempt to bring recognition and acceptance to Vivaldi’s music was a long and hard process. It had been passed to many different people, who asked nothing more than to see Vivaldi’s music got the attention that it deserved to have, such as Professor Gentili, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge and Louis Kaufman. Despite our little knowledge of Antonio Vivaldi, we were able to understand the remarkable impact that he had left in the history via the rediscovery of his works. Besides that we also learned a lesson to pay more attention to the music that had been forgotten. We never knew that might be someday we would rediscover one of the best pieces of music that had ever been created.