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Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11, No. 2, RV 277 “Il favorito”
Allegro - Andante - Allegro
00:00 Opening
00:18 Allegro
05:13 Andante
09:23 Allegro
14:12 Credits
Tatiana Chulochnikova, violin
Rachell Ellen Wong, violin • Tomà Iliev, violin • Yvonne Smith, viola • Gretchen Claassen, violoncello • Gabriel Benton, harpsichord
Eddie Frank, video • Chris Landen, audio
American Bach Soloists • Jeffrey Thomas, Artistic Director
Filmed in April 2021 in the Gold Ballroom of the Palace Hotel (San Francisco, California).
Recorded and filmed using social distancing.
How we made the video: americanbach.org/Videos-Backs...
Antonio Vivaldi was a native of Venice, the son of one of the leading violinists of San Marco, from whom he received his earliest musical training. Subsequently, Vivaldi trained for the priesthood, taking his Holy Orders in 1703, the same year that he became director of music at the Ospedale della Pieta, a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice. It was for the orchestra there of talented and musically accomplished young girls that Vivaldi wrote many of his almost 500 concertos. Almost all of the concertos-about 350 of which were composed for one solo instrument and strings, and 230 of those for violin-are comprised of three movements, and make extensive use, in the outer fast movements, of ritornello form, in which varied statements of a refrain (the ritornello) played by the entire ensemble alternate with episodes of freely thematic material for the soloist (or soloists in the cases of double, triple, and multiple concertos). “Il Favorito” comes from Vivaldi’s opus 11: a set of six concertos that he presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, and that were published in Amsterdam by Le Cene in 1729. All of the concertos in Op. 11 reveal a mature composer who had gained mastery of, and even defined, eighteenth-century musical forms, structures, harmonic devices, and orchestration. Vivaldi's legendary preeminence in these compositional achievements led the young Johann Sebastian Bach to voraciously collect and study scores of Vivaldi's concertos and to learn their technical details by transcribing them for performance on the organ. This concerto's nickname, "Il favorito" ("The Favorite"), was not given by Vivaldi, but appeared on the score in later years, certainly attesting to its early-gained status as an exceptional work. While all three movements are of nearly identical length, the first exhibits a kind of dramatic grandeur that is enhanced by the imaginative variety of the passages for solo violin. The warm stillness of the middle Andante and the dotted rhythms of the final movement remind us of movements from "Autumn" from "The Four Seasons." All in all, the concerto's nickname resonates with the enjoyment that this stunning work has brought to performers and listeners alike.
© 2021, American Bach Soloists
American Bach Soloists (ABS) are leading performers in the field of Baroque music, dedicated to historically informed performances of Bach and his contemporaries. ABS provides meaningful, memorable, and valuable musical experiences for our audiences through inspiring performances and recordings, and it supports the preservation of early music through educational programs for students and emerging professionals. Under the leadership of co-founder and Music Director Jeffrey Thomas, the ensemble has achieved its vision of assembling the world’s finest vocalists and period-instrument performers to bring this brilliant music to life.
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