Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi

Bella Brover-Lubovsky

Description

Analyzes Antonio Vivaldi's tonal and harmonic language

Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi incorporates an analytical study of Vivaldi's style into a more general exploration of harmonic and tonal organization in the music of the late Italian Baroque. The harmonic and tonal language of Vivaldi and his contemporaries, full of curious links between traditional modal thinking and what would later be considered common-practice major-minor tonality, directly reflects the historical circumstances of the shifting attitude toward the conceptualization of tonal space so crucial to Western art music. Vivaldi is examined in a completely new context, allowing both his prosaic and idiosyncratic sides to emerge clearly. This book contributes to a better understanding of Vivaldi's individual style, while illuminating wider processes of stylistic development and the diffusion of artistic ideas in the 18th century.

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Editorial Conventions and Abbreviations
Introduction

Part 1. Estro armonico
1. Vivaldi's "Harmony" and the Paradox of Historical Recognition
2. Theory of Tonal Organization in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Part 2. Key and Mode
3. Tonality and Key Characteristics
4. Modal Implications in Tonal Organization
5. The Interaction of Major and Minor Modes
6. Functioning of Tonality in Large-Scale Composition

Part 3. Harmony and Syntax
7. Lament Bass
8. Sequence
9. Pedal Point
10. Cadence

Part 4. Tonal Structure
11. General Premises
12. Functioning of Harmonic Degrees in Tonal Structure
13. Tonal Structure and the Choice of Tonality
14. Tonal Structure in Cyclic Compositions

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Musique
• Technique musicale
• Technique musicale
• Techniques musicales
• Europe
• Music
• Instruction
• General
• Musicology
• Theory
• General officer
• Study
• Multiple signal classification

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 25 juin 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253028037
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi
Music and the Early Modern Imagination Massimo Ossi, editor
Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi
____________________________
Bella Brover-Lubovsky
Indiana University Press
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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brover-Lubovsky, Bella.       Tonal space in the music of Antonio Vivaldi / Bella Brover-Lubovsky.             p. cm.—(Music and the early modern imagination)       Includes bibliographical references and index.       ISBN-13: 978-0-253-35129-6 (cloth: alk. paper)     1. Vivaldi, Antonio, 1678–1741.—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Tonality. 3. Music—Italy—18th century—History and criticism. 4. Music theory—History—18th century. I. Title. ML410V82B76 2008 780.92—dc22
2007045378
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Editorial Conventions and Abbreviations
Introduction
PART ONE  |  Estro armonico
1.   Vivaldi’s “Harmony” and the Paradox of Historical Recognition
2.   Theory of Tonal Organization in Eighteenth-Century Italy
PART TWO  |  Key and Mode
3.   Tonality and Key Characteristics
4.   Modal Implications in Tonal Organization
5.   The Interaction of Major and Minor Modes
6.   Functioning of Tonality in Large-Scale Composition
PART THREE  |  Harmony and Syntax
7.   Lament Bass
8.   Sequence
9.   Pedal Point
10.   Cadence
PART FOUR  |  Tonal Structure
11.   General Premises
12.   Functioning of Harmonic Degrees in Tonal Structure
13.   Tonal Structure and Choice of Tonality
14.   Tonal Structure in Cyclic Compositions
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Works
Preface and Acknowledgments
Antonio Vivaldi’s music has come under especially close critical scrutiny in recent decades. The philological and historiographical account of his works is fairly accomplished, being replenished by recent thrilling discoveries of such monumental scores as the opera Montezuma , late liturgical compositions, and previously unknown instrumental pieces. Also, progressive methods of source studies increasingly penetrate such traditionally perplexing branches of Vivaldian scholarship as the chronological attribution of his instrumental and sacred music and fill some of the gaps in his personal and artistic life. Vivaldi’s contribution to the formation of the new and the development of the existing genres and structural models is explored in its immense quantity, variety, and artistic values. All of these studies, confronting their subject from multifarious angles, contain fragmentary yet stimulating observations on Vivaldi’s individual harmonic idiom. However, the treatment of tonality and harmonic procedures remains the least explored side of Vivaldi’s style. In fact, a study of the theoretical issues surrounding the crystallization of common-practice harmonic tonality has never previously been combined with in-depth analysis of a wide range of his music.
The present book’s concern is a particular study of the arrangement of tonal space in the music of Vivaldi, taken against the vast background of (mainly Italian) music and theoretical writings of his period. My ultimate aim is to unite early Settecento musical practice and theory as much as possible, while applying contemporaneous theoretical premises for analyzing the works. My interest in Vivaldi resulted in a doctoral thesis (Hebrew University, 2001) devoted to the harmonic procedures and tonality treatment in his concerto first movements. Since then I have been researching this fascinating repertory and revisiting some of my earlier conceptions in various forms. This book stems to some extent from these earlier studies, although my views have undergone significant developments.
This research has been aided by the Orzen Postdoctoral Fellowship and the New Salter Fund for Music and Musicology, Hebrew University; the Vigevani Prize for study in Italy, the Newberry Library Fellowship for Individual Research, and an Italian Academy fellowship, Columbia University. These all provided wonderful experiences for me.
This book would have been impossible in its present shape without Alice McVeigh’s editorial assistance and unceasing encouragement. Various foreign language translations benefited from the expert eyes of Elena Abramov-van Rijk, Gilad Rabinovitch, and Daniel Stratievsky. I am deeply grateful to Michael Talbot for his support of my Vivaldi project over many years as well as for his kind help and advice generally. A special debt of gratitude is owed to John Walter Hill who not only turned my mind toward new inspirational ideas but also granted me access to his unique databases and microfilm materials. My senior colleagues—Jehoash Hirshberg, Don Harrán, and Simon McVeigh—have always provided their enduring support. I also owe a special debt of thanks to Reinhard Strohm for his generous exchange of information. Outstanding scholars read the early drafts of individual chapters and offered important suggestions: Ido Abravaya, Gregory Barnett, Michael Dodds, Ruth HaCohen, Ruth Katz, Rudolf Rasch, Nicholas Temperley, and Steven Zohn.
I am grateful to the staff of the Bloomfield Library for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Hebrew University; the Library of the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, Jerusalem; Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Turin; Music and General Library of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Newberry Library, Chicago; and Columbia University Libraries.
My thanks go to the series editor Massimo Ossi and the editorial staff of Indiana University Press—Jane Behnken, Bethany Kissel, Elaine Otto, Suzanne Ryan, June Silay, and Donna Wilson—for their involvement, interest, and assistance during all stages of writing and production.
Most of all, I wish to thank my family, a source of enduring encouragement, patience, and unwavering support: my parents, Mark Brover and Mirra Kipnis, the ultimate exemplars of high academic standards; my children, Ehe, Dana, and Ilan, who came to accept Vivaldi as a part of the family, and most of all my husband, Nachum Lubovsky, always my first and most critical reader, who expertly and meticulously prepared all my musical examples, tables, and figures. To all of them this book is lovingly dedicated.
Editorial Conventions and Abbreviations
All citations maintain their original spellings. Every reference translated from theoretical sources is by the author unless otherwise stated.
Each composition by Vivaldi mentioned in the text is specified by its number according to Peter Ryom, Répertoire des Œuvres d’Antonio Vivaldi: Les Compositions Instrumentales , in addition to its name and (in vocal works) Italian or Latin text incipit.
Musical examples have been taken from the collected editions Le opere di Antonio Vivaldi, Nuova edizione critica delle opere di Antonio Vivaldi , and various unedited manuscripts.
Tables 5.1 , 6.1 – 3 , 8.1 , and 12.1 – 5 delineate the tonal structure of pieces in relation to other compositional parameters, such as the textural alternation of ripieno and solo episodes (R and S), thematic recurrences of the head motive (m), and proportions of time. Major keys and their harmonic function in the overall tonal plan are identified by uppercase roman numerals and minor keys by lowercase roman numerals; arrows indicate functional modulation, pedal point is abbreviated as PP, while a double slash (//) is used to indicate an abrupt key change by hiatus.
Introduction
The theoretical aspects and practical manifestations of what has been defined as “early tonality” constitute one of the pivotal trends in current scholarship. Its being admitted to the status of an autonomous stage in the history of the arrangement of tonal space in western music rests upon general agreement on its relationships with contiguous systems—mature common-practice tonality and antecedent modality—as well as on a consensus about its chronological boundaries.
Scholars date the beginning of the apparent transition from modal to tonal principles from the early seventeenth—or even the sixteenth—century. Alexandre-Étienne Choron and François-Joseph Fétis, the first exegetes of tonality, dated its origins from Claudio Monteverdi’s early madrigals. 1 They saw the fundamental factor of tonalité moderne , the harmonic tonality of the common practice, residing in the contrast between the consonant and the dissonant harmony (seventh chords) as being already clearly discernible in Monteverdi’s music. Nowadays, Susan McClary and Eric Chafe both detect the seeds of tonal harmony in Monteverdi, while Carl Dahlhaus perceives its first manifestations in the motets of Josquin des Prez. 2 Edward Lowinsky enumerates several critical historical developments that he believes evidence an evolving concept of tonality in the Cinquecento frottola and madrigal. 3
With regard to dating the ultimate crystallization of harmonic tonality, most authors settle on the last two decades of the seventeenth century. In the wake o