Volume 25, Number 4 · March 23, 1978
Evviva Vivaldi! A Consumer's Report for the Tercentenary
By Robert Craft
In recent years the music of Antonio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678-July 1741) has inundated concert programs and FM stations, outnumbered listings of Handel in record catalogues, and so vastly expanded the repertory of chamber orchestras that new ensembles have been formed to play it. This ubiquity contrasts with the two centuries of eclipse[1] following the death of the 'red-headed priest.'[2] Though a comparatively large portion of his music was published during his lifetime and remained accessible in libraries, not until the nineteenth-century Bach revival and the unearthing of a 'Concerto del Sigre Ant. Vivaldi accomodato per l'Organo…del Sigre Giovanni Sebastiano Bach' and of twelve other concertos 'elaborati' by Bach did the Venetian's name arouse any curiosity. But even this endorsement did not lead to reprintings of his music or to its presentation before a wide audience.
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