The Name You Trust for Classical Music

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the COMPACT DISC Vivaldi: L' Estro Armonico, Op. 3

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

A Special Offer for Valentines

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Masters of American Music

53rd Annual Grammy� Award Winners

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

Vivaldi: L' Estro Armonico, Op. 3

Home

Classical Music

Concertos

View large image

$9.99 (COMPACT DISC)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this COMPACT DISC Link to this page

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) L'Estro Armonico Opus 3 Once virtually forgotten, Antonio Vivaldi now enjoys a reputation that equals the international fame...

Read more about this recording

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)

L'Estro Armonico Opus 3

Once virtually forgotten, Antonio Vivaldi now enjoys a reputation that equals the international fame he enjoyed in his heyday. Born in Venice in 1678, the son of a barber who was himself to win distinction as a violinist in the service of the great basilica of San Marco, which continued the traditions of the Gabrielis and Monteverdi, he studied for the priesthood, and was ordained in 1703. At the same time he established himself as a violinist of remarkable ability. A later visitor to Venice was to describe his playing in the opera-house in 1715, his use of high positions so that his fingers almost touched the bridge of the violin, leaving little room for the bow, and his contrapuntal cadenza, a fugue played at great speed. The experience, the observer added, was too artificial to be enjoyable.

Nevertheless Vivaldi was among the most famous virtuosi of the day, as well as being a prolific composer of music that won wide favour at home and abroad.

For much of his life Vivaldi was associated with the Ospedale della Pieta, one of four foundations in Venice for the education of orphan, illegitimate or indigent girls, a select group of whom were trained as musicians. Venice attracted then, as now, many foreign tourists, and the Pieta and its music long remained a centre of cultural pilgrimage. In 1703 Vivaldi, known as il prete rosso, the red priest, for the inherited colour of his heir, was appointed violin-master to the pupils of the Pieta. The position was subject to annual renewal by the board of governors, whose voting was not invariably in Vivaldi's favour, particularly as his reputation and consequent obligations outside the orphanage increased. In 1709 he left the Pieta, to be reinstated in 1711. In 1716 he was removed briefly, to be given, a month later, the title of Maestro de' Concerti, director of instrumental music. A year later he had left the Pieta for a period of three years spent in Mantua as Maestro di Cappella da Camera to Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, the German nobleman appointed by the Emperor in Vienna as governor of the city.

In 1720 he was again in Venice and in 1723 the relationship with the Pieta was resumed, apparently on a less formal basis. Vivaldi was commissioned to write two new concertos a month, and to rehearse and direct some of them. The arrangement allowed him to travel, and he was to spend time in Rome and indirectly to seek possible appointment in Paris through dedications to Louis XV, which brought no practical result. Vienna seemed to offer more, with the good will of Charles VI, whose inopportune death, when Vivaldi attempted in old age to find employment there, must have proved a very considerable disappointment.

In 1730 there was a visit to Bohemia; in 1735 another appointment to the Pieta as Maestro de' Concerti, and in 1738 an appearance in Amsterdam, where he led the orchestra at the centenary of the Schouwberg Theatre. By 1740, however, Venice had begun to grow tired of Vivaldi, and shortly after the performance of Concertos specially written as part of a serenata for the entertainment of the young Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony in 1740, his impending departure was announced to the governors of the Pieta, who were asked, and at first refused, to buy some of his concertos.

In 1741 Vivaldi travelled to Vienna, where he arrived in June, and had time to sell some of the scores he had brought with him, before succumbing to some form of stomach inflammation. He died a month to the day after his arrival and was buried the same day with as little expense as possible. As was remarked in Venice, he had once been worth 50,000 ducats a year, but through his extravagance he died in poverty.

Much of Vivaldi's expenditure was presumably in the opera-house. He was associated from 1714 with the management of the San Angelo theatre, a second-rate house which nevertheless began to win a name for decent performances, whatever its economies in quality and spectacle. Vivaldi is known to have written some 46 operas and possibly some 40 more than this; he was also involved as composer and entrepreneur in their production in other opera- houses in Italy. It was his work in the opera-house that led to Marcello's satirical attack on him in 1720 in Il teatro alla moda, on the frontispiece of which Aldaviva, alias Vivaldi, is seen as an angel with a fiddle, wearing a priest's hat, standing on the tiller, with one foot raised, as if to beat time, It has been suggested that "on the fiddle" has similar connotations in Italian as in English. Vivaldi had his enemies.

The twelve concertos for strings and basso continuo published in Amsterdam in 1711 under the title L'estro armonico were to exert a wide influence over musical taste. Vivaldi dedicated the collection to Ferdinand of Tuscany, heir to the Grand Duke Cosimo III and patron of Handel and the Scarlattis among others. The choice of the Amsterdam publisher Etienne Roger ensured sales in northern Europe, as well as in Italy, where Vivaldi's style was less of a novelty, and provided players with a clear text, more legible than the sonatas of Opus I and Opus II that had been first brought out in Venice.

Concerto No.1 in D major

makes use of four solo violins, and a solo cello in the first movement, with divided violas. The energetic and thoroughly characteristic first movement is followed by a slow movement that opens with a grandiose unison before two solo violins, accompanied by the viola, appear in alternating episodes. The final movement, in the customary compound metre, contrasts solo instruments with the rest of the orchestra.

Concerto No.2 in G minor

is scored for two solo violins and a solo cello, with divided violas, and opens with a slow introductory section, leading to a lively Allegro opened by the whole orchestra but later alternating with the solo instruments. The moving Larghetto leads to a final Allegro with the mood and metre of a gigue.

Concerto No.4 in E minor

opens in the manner of an overture, moving on to an Allegro. There is the briefest of Adagios linking this to the final Allegro.

Concerto No.7 in F major

is for four solo violins and solo cello. The central movement is an Allegro, started by the first two solo violins, and the work ends with a minuet rather than a gigue.

Concerto No.8 in A minor, a concerto grosso with a solo group of two violins, opens in emphatic style before passages of contrasting texture with the alternation of solo violins and the full orchestra. The solo violins enter in imitation in the slow movement and there is a final movement in which, as before, much is made of the descending scale.

The concerto was transcribed by Bach for organ.

Concerto No.10 in B minor

is again for four solo violins and cello and formed the basis of an A minor concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach for four harpsichords. The slow movement includes an interesting contrast of bowings and rhythms between the solo violins and is followed by a last movement in which there is considerable variety of texture.

Two solo violins introduce Concerto No.11 in D minor, entering in close imitation. The concerto was transcribed by Bach for the organ. A short slow section leads the way into a fugal Allegro, the subject announced by the cello and answered by the viola. The slow movement has the rhythm and mood of a Siciliana and leads without a break to the imitative entries of the solo instruments in the final movement.

Capella Istropolitana

The Capella Istropolitana was founded in 1983 by members of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, at first as a chamber orchestra and then as an orchestra large enough to tackle the standard classical repertoire. Based in Bratislava, its name drawn from the ancient name still preserved in the

Academia Istropolitana, the historic university established in the Slovak and one-time Hungarian capital by Matthias Corvinus, the orchestra works principally in the recording studio. Recordings by the orchestra on the Naxos label include The Best of Baroque Music, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, fifteen each of Mozart's and Haydn's symphonies as well as works by Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann.

The Soloists, Quido Holbling, Anna Holblingova, Marta Petrlikova, Zdenek Petrlik, Alexander Jablokov, Peter Hamar, Robert Marecek, Ludovit Kanta, Jozef Podhoransky and Peter Baran are members of Capella Istropolitana.

Jozef Kopefman

Jozef Kopelman was born in the Russian town of Uzhgorog in 1947 and studied the violin at the Conservatory in Kiev, later occupying the position of leader of the Kiev Chamber Orchestra. He joined the Slovak Chamber Orchestra in 1976, and now continues his career as a soloist and as a conductor. He has recorded for Opus and for Melodiya.

Disc 1

Concerto for 4 Violins in D major, Op. 3, No. 1, RV 549

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman
Angele Dubeau, violin
Recording date: September-December 1988

Allegro - 3:01
Largo e spicato - 2:37
Allegro - 2:35

Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 3, No. 2, RV 578

(more info)

Performed by: European Union Baroque Orchestra Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Roy Goodman Jozef Kopelman Federico Maria Sardelli Nicolas Mazzoleni
Enrico Casazza, violin
Bettina Hoffmann, viola da gamba

Adagio e spiccato - Allegro - 4:24
Larghetto - 3:17
Allegro - 3:06

Concerto for 4 Violins in E minor, Op. 3, No. 4, RV 550

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman
Recording date: September-December, 1988

Andante - 2:45
Allegro assai - 2:21
Adagio - 0:51
Allegro - 1:57

Concerto Grosso in F major, Op. 3, No. 7, RV 567

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman

Andante - 3:12
Adagio - 1:25
Allegro - Adagio - 3:34
Allegro - 2:01

Concerto for 2 Violins in A minor, Op. 3, No. 8, RV 522

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra Accademia Ziliniana Homburg Chamber Orchestra
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jaroslav Krecek Jozef Kopelman Jeanne Lamon Bernard Labadie
Julie Triquet, violin
Frantisek Figura, violin
Nicole Trotier,
Jindrich Pazdera, violin
Genevieve Gilardeau, violin
Dieter Stumm, violin
Uli Leibrock, violin
Helfried Steckel, violin

Allegro - 3:34
Larghetto e spiritoso - 3:46
Allegro - 3:29

Concerto for 4 Violins in B minor, Op. 3, No. 10, RV 580

(more info)

Performed by: Cologne Chamber Orchestra Soloists of Australia Moscow Chamber Orchestra Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman Helmut Muller-Bruhl Constantine Orbelian
Corinne Chapelle, violin
Massimo Quarta, violin
Lucas Barr, violin
Renee Ohldin, violin
Alexander Zagorinsky,
Ronald Thomas, cello
Christine Pichlmeier, violin
Irina Ivanova, violin
Alexander Mayorov, violin
Elena Kuligina, violin
Levon Oganessian, violin

Allegro - 3:55
Largo - Larghetto - 1:57
Allegro - 3:16

Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 3, No. 11, RV 565

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana Musici de Montreal, I Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra Concerto Koln
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman Jeanne Lamon Bernard Labadie Werner Ehrhardt Werner Erhardt
Luca Peverini, cello
Yuli Turovsky, cello
Antonio de Secondi, violin
Riccardo Masahide Minasi, violin
Rinaldo Alessandrini, harpsichord
Recording date: September-December 1988

Allegro - 4:18
Largo e spiccato - 2:25
Allegro - 2:26

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Vivaldi, Antonio

Conductor(s):
Kopelman, Jozef

Orchestra(s):
Capella Istropolitana

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 730099516020
Item Number: 8550160
Release Date: Oct 15, 1988