Duo Gelland: Antonio Vivaldi: Suonate a 2 violini, da camera, da suonarsi anche senza il basso

Antonio Vivaldi was a great violinist, as was his father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi. It is
no coincidence that Antonio Vivaldi’s first publication op. 1 in 1705 was a collection
of sonatas for two violins and basso continuo. He dedicated most of his instrumental
output to the violin, writing sonatas for one or two violins and concerti for up to four solo
violins further writing compositions where the violin appears as a second main character
alongside other instruments or voice. The violin constitutes a kind of nucleus in the art of
Vivaldi congruent to his mastery of idiomatic violin technique, but he also had a deep and
intimate understanding of the human voice. This enabled an ongoing original osmosis of
vocal cords and bowed strings where he imbued his violin writing with the lyrical inflections
and manners of a singer while at the same time expanding his vocal writing with the
vocabulary of instrumental virtuosity. Back then the most daring experiments, from an
instrumental as well as a formal standpoint, would usually take place in the concerto,
while the sonata was the more conservative genre with close ties to Corelli’s models.

However, that is not the case with this set of four sonatas for two violins, RV 68 and RV 70
in F major, RV 71 in G major and RV 77 in B flat major, “Suonate a 2 violini, da camera, da
suonarsi anche senza il basso”. They were published posthumously, the manuscripts being
preserved in the “Renzo Giordano” collection at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin. Judging
by their style, the unusual choice of an optional continuo and quotes from compositions
Vivaldi wrote in the 1730s, the sonatas appear to have originated later that decade.
Self-citation in Vivaldi’s times was a well established practice where you draw from
your vast repertoire of motifs and musical materials to recombine and rework them into
new forms. Vivaldi systematically and creatively practised this Ars Combinandi which
Olivier Fourés compares to the canvases of Venetian vedutisti, such as Canaletto and
Francesco Guardi. They were able to paint the same view a thousand times though
always another time of day, another weather, another season, another mood. Federico
Maria Sardelly explains in his “Catalogo delle concordanze musicali vivaldiane” how
Vivaldi’s reuse of his own musical material is nothing like a simple copy-paste. Rather
it was an intricate process of perfecting, honing, developing and adjusting his old
materials for their new contexts. Such reimagining would typically take place with the
original composition fresh in mind, often within a year. Characteristically an opera aria
would reemerge in an instrumental piece and sonata elements would find their way into
a concerto. The opposite was rarer, yet these duo sonatas are an example of exactly
that; concerto materials being used in sonatas. Sonata RV 71 draws from the virtuosic
Concerto for two violins RV 516 in the same key, tracing the two first movements as well as
large sections of the third movement. The opening theme of Sonata RV 77 correlates with
the opening of the third movement of Concerto for two violins RV 505 in C major. Sonata
RV 70, the Larghetto, corresponds to the Cantabile of the solo violin concerto in E major,
“l’amoroso” RV 271. Some of Vivaldi’s famous opera arias resurface in later operas, but
also in a variety of instrumental works. He thus created “theatrical” concerti with motifs
from an aria illustrating or underscoring the music’s drama. An example of this is the
opening theme of the Sonata RV 70, which comes from the beginning of the aria “Del
destin non dee lagnarsi” from the pasticco Bajazet (1735), which in turn comes from the
aria “Del destin non vi lagnate” from the Olimpiade (1734).

One theory, suggested by Michael Talbot, is that these four sonatas were written
for the concerts Vivaldi gave with his father on their trip to Central Europe in 1730, and
that the ad libitum bass was intended for improvised performances when no cellist or
harpsichordist was available. More plausibly the sonatas were written later when his
father could hardly have performed them with him. The two had in fact played together
many times, while his father was still at his peak, but the last years before Giovanni Battista
died in 1736 he was of poor health and not active as a violinist. He was surely not able
to play such technically demanding pieces anymore. It is plausible that the four sonatas
were written with the young, talented violinist from the Ospedale della Pietà in mind, for
example Chiara, for whom Vivaldi composed several virtuosic concerti in those years.
One novelty of these sonatas is their form, closely resembling that of the concerti for
two violins. They even have three movements, thus breaking with the norm of Corelli’s
suite-like four movement model, that Vivaldi usually adhered to just like Benedetto
Marcello, Tommaso Albinoni and Georg Friedrich Händel. The idea of a continue line
so simple that it can be omitted, suggests a desire to write instrumental duets without
Leclair. The individual movements, with the exception of the Andante in Sonata RV 68,
demonstrate the monothematic baroque sonatas’ typical binary form where each one of
the two closely related sections is repeated and the second section presents the theme
of the first section but in a different key.

These four sonatas treat the two violins as equals, with a continuous interchange of the
same material, in playful chiasmus, where the order of musical cells is reversed, as well as
in imitative counterpoint and in passage work where the violins move parallelly. The ever
changing flow of the dialogue with a hint of “competitiveness” offers rich thematic, tonal
and rhythmic variation and lyrical glimpses sounding like echos of opera arias. Antonio
Vivaldi’s writing, in spite of its orderly structure, is strikingly inventive and versatile. The
parts jump across two or three strings in large intervals employing bariolage techniques
and many different means of creating subtle contrasts in dynamics and articulation. The
ornamentation is varied and increases the virtuosic character in the fast movements
while taking on an intensely expressive character in the slow movements. These sonatas
appear denser than the concerti for two violins which partly is a consequence of
incorporating bass fragments in a kind of virtual counterpoint making it possible to follow
the harmonic patterns. The virtuosic interweaving of the two lines is freed of the basso
continuo’s rhythmic-harmonic framework, yet flowing with great freedom and ease,
highlighting an instrumental dialogue full of contrast and wit.

Each one of the slow movements has a very different vocal, arioso character. The
expressive, almost pleading theme of the Andante of Sonata RV 68 comes with long
progressions of ascending and descending scales, interrupted by short moaning phrases.
Sonata RV 70, the slow movement, sings a cantabile melody with an introspective
character rich in ornamentation and bold vocal contrasts called chiaroscuro. Once the
second part starts the music suddenly turns into four-part harmony with simultaneous
double stops. The intimate yet heavier character of the Larghetto in B minor of Sonata RV 71
is marked from the very first bars by its dotted rhythm, its wide intervals and the delicate
passages played together by the violins. The pace is mournful in the Andante of Sonata
RV 77, the violins constantly switching roles in an increasingly dense and embellished
interplay.

The fast movements, on the other hand, seem to be the ideal setup for daring
experiments like in the finale of Sonata RV 68, where instrumental figures in wide intervals
create a texture that coagulates into very fast sequences with parallel thirds, intentionally
leaving long pauses in the bass line. The opening Allegro of Sonata RV 70 with its nervous
bowing and abundant use of double and triple stops also offers surprises, such as a brief
passage of empty fifths and pedal D, almost the echo of a bagpipe. In the stomping dance
steps characterising the final movement, Allegro molto, of the same sonata, the material
consists of repeated notes and arpeggios, to which rapid semiquavers in parallel thirds,
again, are added as well as trills and hammering figures. The sudden thematic shifts
of the Allegri of Sonata RV 77 generate a fanciful, somewhat bewildered atmosphere
exploding into pyrotechnic effects. The virtuosic potential of the two violins is exploited to
the full in the Sonata in G major RV 71, where the writing appears more whimsical and less
contrapuntal, full of abrupt motivic gestures. In the first Allegro the two voices respond to
each other like echoes, with little overlapping, wide leaps and sharp dynamic contrasts.
The third movement, Allegro molto, is based on the brilliant interweaving of arpeggios and
rapidly descending scales leading into a relaxed melody in the second violin enveloped
by the ample resonant arpeggios of the first violin, an enchanting conclusion, the pedal
D giving it a musette-like flavour. In short, the music in these sonatas is richly imaginative,
with an “inspiration” and an “inventiveness” that seem to dominate the balance of
“harmony”. This is music capable of surprising the listener with the unexpected turns of
its themes and unusual phrase structures. In its very concentrated form evoking a vast
range of emotions from exuberantly gesturing capriciousness to melancholic, introverted
singing, it already looks beyond Baroque aesthetics, at times prefiguring the “gallant”
style.

The wealth of ideas contained in these sonatas, and the instrumental textures as they
are notated, offer great freedom of interpretational approaches well beyond the choice of
performing them with or without basso continuo. This becomes evident when you listen
to the quite different unaccompanied performances on the record market, for example
those by Catherine Mackintosh and Elizabeth Wallfisch (Chandos), Chiara Banchini and
Véronique Méjean (Harmonia mundi), Maria Krestinskaya and Evgeny Sviridov (ERP), and
Enrico Onofri and Lina Tur Bonet (Pan Classics). The reading offered by Duo Gelland is also
very personal drawing inspiration from the free and rhapsodic style of Roy Goodman, but
also from early 18th century Venetian painting, from the play of colour and chiaroscuro,
and from the body language of artists such as Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Battista
Piazzetta and Giambattista Tiepolo. In interpreting these sonatas, arranged on the CD
according to character or “brightness”, placing at the extremes those with a more terse
and light character (RV 71, RV 68), Cecilia and Martin Gelland demonstrate a perfect
symbiosis, the result of a mature collaboration of over 25 years. However, although the
material circulating between the two instrumental parts is always the same, the result
is not simple repetition, but rather a confrontation or exchange between two different
personas, an intimate dialogue achieved by accentuating the expressive characters,
the “speaking” inflections, like in the Andante of Sonata RV 68 or emphasizing the
dynamic fluctuations like in Sonata RV 71, the figures sometimes seeming to fade, getting
highlighted or subtly absorbed and in the Allegro of Sonata RV 70 exploring dry, detached
sonorities and an almost improvisatory freedom in the corresponding Larghetto. The great
speed of execution in the Allegri brings out the virtuosic elements while the sound without
vibrato highlights the rich chromatic nuances. All of that contributes to making this
interpretation particularly vivid and electrifying, seeming to flash contemporary intuition
into the flow of melodic energy.

- Gianluigi Mattieti (translation Cecilia Gelland)

Recorded in the Church of Laxsjö (Jämtland, Sweden)

Recording equipment: Microtech Gefell microphones M296S, Millennia M–2b microphone preamplifier, Lake People A/D converter, 96 kHz/24–bit recording

Recording and digital editing: LyriconMusicProduction Sweden

Photo Credits:
Cover: Baroque pulpit sculptures from around 1740 in Betenbrunn Church, southern Germany, photo by Martin Gelland
Inside to the left: Set of three caricatures by Pier Leone Ghezzi, Vivaldi to the left, the inscription underneath reading Il Prete Rosso Compositor di Musica che fee L’opera a Capranica del 1723, Biblioteca Vaticana
Inside middle: Trolle Gelland
Inside to the right: Pen, ink and wash drawing by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1727, Royal Collection Trust

Booklet: Martin Gelland