Oboe

A modern oboe with a reed
Woodwind instrument
Classification	Wind Woodwind Double reed
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	422.112-71 (Double-reeded aerophone with keys)
Developed	Mid 17th century from the shawm
Playing range
Related instruments
Piccolo oboe Oboe d'amore Cor anglais (English horn) Oboe da caccia Wiener Oboe Bass oboe Heckelphone Contrabass oboe Piston oboe

The oboe ( /ˈoʊboʊ/) is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" (French compound word made of haut ("high, loud") and bois ("wood, woodwind"), "hoboy", or "French hoboy".^[1] The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca. 1770 from the Italian oboè, a transliteration in that language's orthography of the 17th-century pronunciation of the French name. A musician who plays the oboe is called an oboist.

Sound[link]

In comparison to other modern woodwind instruments, the oboe has a clear and penetrating voice. The Sprightly Companion, an instruction book published by Henry Playford in 1695, describes the oboe as "Majestical and Stately, and not much Inferior to the Trumpet." More humorously, the voice is described in the play Angels in America as sounding like that of a duck if the duck were a songbird.^[2] The timbre of the oboe is derived from the oboe's conical bore (as opposed to the generally cylindrical bore of flutes and clarinets). As a result, oboes are readily audible over other instruments in large ensembles.

The oboe is pitched in concert C and has a soprano range. Orchestras frequently tune to a concert A (usually A440) played by the oboe. According to the League of American Orchestras, this is done because the pitch of the oboe is secure and its penetrating sound makes it ideal for tuning purposes.^[3] The pitch of the oboe is affected by the way in which the reed is made. The reed has a significant effect on the sound of the instrument. Variations in cane and other construction materials, the age of the reed, and differences in scrape and length will all affect the pitch of the instrument. German and French reeds, for instance, differ in many ways, causing the sound of the oboe to vary accordingly. Weather conditions such as temperature and humidity will also affect the pitch. Skilled oboists adjust their embouchure to compensate for these factors. Subtle manipulation of embouchure and air pressure allows the player to express timbre and dynamics.

Gran Concerto Antonio Pasculli's Gran Concerto for Oboe and Piano. Performed by Alex Klein, oboe and Lisa Bergman, piano. The oboe begins playing about one minute in. Problems listening to this file? See media help.

History[link]

The oboe first appeared in the mid-17th century, when it was called hautbois. This name was also used for its predecessor, the shawm, from which the basic form of the hautbois was derived.^[4] Major differences between the two instruments include the division of the hautbois into three sections, or joints (which allowed for more precise manufacture), and the elimination of the pirouette, the wooden ledge below the reed which allowed players to rest their lips.

The exact date and place of origin of the hautbois are obscure, as are the individuals who were responsible. Circumstantial evidence, such as the statement by Michel de la Barre in his Memoire, points to members of the Philidor (Filidor) and Hotteterre families. The instrument may in fact have had multiple inventors.^[5] The hautbois quickly spread throughout Europe, including England, where it was called "hautboy", "hoboy", "hautboit", "howboye", and similar variants of the French name.^[6] It was the main melody instrument in early military bands, until it was succeeded by the clarinet.^[7]

The baroque oboe was generally made of boxwood and had three keys: a "great" key and two side keys (The side key was often doubled to facilitate use of either the right or left hand on the bottom holes). In order to produce higher pitches, the player had to "overblow", or increase the air stream to reach the next harmonic. Notable oboe-makers of the period are the German Denner and Eichentopf, and the English Stanesby Sr. and Jr. The range for the baroque oboe comfortably extends from C₄ to D₆. With the resurgence of interest in early music in the mid 20th century, a few makers began producing copies to specifications from surviving historical instruments.

Classical oboe, copy by Sand Dalton of an original by Johann Friedrich Floth, c. 1805

Classical[link]

The classical period brought an oboe whose bore was gradually narrowed, and the instrument became outfitted with several keys, among them were those for the notes D♯, F, and G♯. A key similar to the modern octave key was also added called the "slur key", though it was at first used more like the "flick" keys on the modern German bassoon. Only later did French instrument makers redesign the octave key to be used in the manner of the modern key (i.e. held open for the upper register, closed for the lower). The narrower bore allowed the higher notes to be more easily played, and composers began to more often utilize the oboe's upper register in their works. Because of this, the oboe's tessitura in the Classical era was somewhat broader than that found in baroque works. The range for the Classical oboe extends from C₄ to F₆ (using the scientific pitch notation system), though some German and Austrian oboes were capable of playing one half-step lower. Classical-era composers who wrote concertos for oboe include Mozart (both the solo concerto in C major K. 314/285d and the lost original of Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major K. 297b, as well as a fragment of F major concerto K. 417f), Haydn, (both the Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat Hob. I:105 and the spurious concerto in C major Hob. VIIg:C1), Beethoven (the F major concerto, Hess 12, of which only sketches survive, though the second movement was reconstructed in the late twentieth century), and numerous other composers including Johann Christian Bach, Johann Christian Fischer, Jan Antonín Koželuh, and Ludwig August Lebrun. Many solos exist for the oboe in chamber, symphonic, and operatic compositions from the Classical era.

Viennese or Wiener oboe[link]

The Wiener oboe is a type of modern oboe that retains the essential bore and tonal characteristics of the historical oboe. The Akademiemodel Wiener Oboe, first developed in the late 19th century by Josef Hajek from earlier instruments by C. T. Golde of Dresden (1803–73), is now made by several makers such as André Constantinides, Karl Rado, Guntram Wolf, Christian Rauch and Yamaha. It has a wider internal bore, a shorter and broader reed and the fingering-system is very different than the Conservatoire oboe.^{[citation needed]} In "The Oboe", Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes write "The differences are most clearly marked in the middle register, which is reedier and more pungent, and the upper register, which is richer in harmonics on the Viennese oboe".^[8] Guntram Wolf describes them: "From the concept of the bore, the Viennese oboe is the last representative of the historical oboes, adapted for the louder, larger orchestra, and fitted with an extensive mechanism. Its great advantage is the ease of speaking, even in the lowest register. It can be played very expressively and blends well with other instruments."^{[cite this quote]} The Viennese oboe is, along with the Vienna horn, perhaps the most distinctive member of the Wiener Philharmoniker instrumentarium.

Conservatoire oboe[link]

The oboe was developed further in the 19th century by the Triebert family of Paris. Using the Boehm flute as a source of ideas for key work, Guillaume Triebert and his sons, Charles and Frederic, devised a series of increasingly complex yet functional key systems. A variant form using large tone holes, the Boehm system oboe, was never in common use, though it was used in some military bands in Europe into the 20th century. F. Lorée of Paris made further developments to the modern instrument. Minor improvements to the bore and key work have continued through the 20th century, but there has been no fundamental change to the general characteristics of the instrument for several decades.^[9]

The modern oboe is most commonly made from grenadilla, also known as African Blackwood, though some manufacturers also make oboes out of other members of the genus Dalbergia, which includes cocobolo, rosewood, and violetwood. Ebony (genus Diospyros) has also been used. Student model oboes are often made from plastic resin, to avoid instrument cracking to which wood instruments are prone, but also to make the instrument more economical. The oboe has an extremely narrow conical bore. The oboe is played with a double reed consisting of two thin blades of cane tied together on a small-diameter metal tube (staple) which is inserted into the reed socket at the top of the instrument. The commonly accepted range for the oboe extends from B♭₃ to about G₆, over two and a half octaves, though its common tessitura lies from C₄ to E♭₆. Some student oboes only extend to B₃ (the key for B♭ is not present). However this variant is becoming less common.

A modern oboe with the "full conservatoire" ("conservatory" in the USA) or Gillet key system has 45 pieces of keywork, with the possible additions of a third octave key and alternate (left little finger) F- or C-key. The keys are usually made of nickel silver, and are silver or occasionally gold-plated. Besides the full conservatoire system, oboes are also made using the English thumbplate system. Most have "semi-automatic" octave keys, in which the second octave action closes the first, and some have a fully automatic octave key system, as used on saxophones. Some full conservatory oboes have finger holes covered with rings rather than plates ("open-holed"), and most of the professional models have at least the right hand third key open-holed. Professional oboes used in the UK frequently feature conservatoire system combined with a thumb plate. With this type of mechanism the oboist has the best of both worlds as far as the convenience of fingerings is concerned.^{[citation needed]}

Other members of the oboe family[link]

The members of the oboe family from top: heckelphone, bass oboe, cor anglais, oboe d'amore, oboe, and piccolo oboe

The oboe has several siblings. The most widely known today is the cor anglais, or English horn, the tenor (or alto) member of the family. A transposing instrument; it is pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe. The oboe d'amore, the alto (or mezzo-soprano) member of the family, is pitched in A, a minor third lower than the oboe. J.S. Bach made extensive use of both the oboe d'amore as well as the taille and oboe da caccia, Baroque antecedents of the cor anglais. Even less common is the bass oboe (also called baritone oboe), which sounds one octave lower than the oboe. Delius and Holst both scored for the instrument. Similar to the bass oboe is the more powerful heckelphone, which has a wider bore and larger tone than the bass oboe. Only 165 heckelphones have ever been made. Not surprisingly, competent heckelphone players are difficult to find due to the extreme rarity of this particular instrument.^[10] The least common of all are the musette (also called oboe musette or piccolo oboe), the sopranino member of the family (it is usually pitched in E-flat or F above the oboe), and the contrabass oboe (typically pitched in C, two octaves deeper than the standard oboe).

Folk versions of the oboe, sometimes equipped with extensive keywork, are found throughout Europe. These include the musette (France) and the Piston oboe and bombarde (Brittany), the piffaro and ciaramella (Italy), and the xirimia or chirimia (Spain). Many of these are played in tandem with local forms of bagpipe, particularly with the Italian zampogna or Breton biniou. Similar oboe-like instruments, most believed to derive from Middle Eastern models, are also found throughout Asia as well as in North Africa.

Reeds[link]

Oboist Albrecht Mayer preparing reeds for use. Most oboists scrape their own reeds to achieve the desired tone and response

An oboe reed

Most professional oboists make their own reeds since every oboist needs a slightly different reed to suit his or her individual needs. By making their own reeds, oboists can precisely control factors such as tone colour and tuning. Occasionally, novice oboists may begin with a Fibrecane reed, which is made of a synthetic material. Commercially available cane reeds are available in several degrees of hardness; a medium reed is usually used, and most beginners use medium-soft reeds. These reeds, like clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon reeds, are made from Arundo donax. As oboists gain more experience, they may start making their own reeds after the model of their teacher, or buying hand-made reeds (usually from a professional oboist) and using special tools including gougers, pre-gougers, guillotines, knives, and other tools to make the reed to their own liking. ^[11] According to the late John Mack, former principal oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra, an oboe student must fill a laundry basket with finished reeds in order to master the art .^[12] "Making good reeds requires years of practice, and the amateur is often well advised not to embark on making his own reeds, ... Orchestral musicians sometimes do this [make reeds], and co-principals in particular often earn a bit on the side in this way. ... Many professional musicians import their reed cane ... directly from the growers in southern France and split it vertically into three parts themselves. Oboes require thicknesses of about 10 millimetres, bassoons of 20 to 25 millimetres."^{[citation needed]} This allows each player to adjust the reeds precisely for individual embouchure, oral cavity, oboe angle, and air support. The reed is considered the part of oboe playing that makes it so difficult because slight variations in temperature, altitude, weather, and climate will change a perfectly working reed into an unplayable collection of cane.

Notable classical works featuring the oboe[link]

See also Oboe concerto.

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Oboe Concerto in C major, Quartet in F major
• Antonio Lotti, Concerto for oboe d'amore
• Antonio Vivaldi, at least 15 oboe concertos
• Antonio Pasculli, oboe concertos for oboe and piano/orchestra
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg concertos nos. 1 and 2, Concerto for Violin and oboe, lost oboe concerti, numerous oboe obbligato lines in the sacred and secular cantatas
• Tomaso Albinoni, Oboe (and two-oboe) Concerti
• George Frideric Handel, The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Oboe Concerti and Sonatas
• Georg Philipp Telemann, oboe concerti and sonatas, trio sonatas for oboe, recorder, and basso continuo
• Richard Strauss, Oboe Concerto
• Joseph Haydn (spurious-possibly by Kozeluch), Oboe Concerto in C major
• Vincenzo Bellini, Concerto in E♭, for oboe and string orchestra (before 1825)
• Luciano Berio, Sequenza VII (1969), also Chemins IV (on Sequenza VII), for oboe and string orchestra (1975)
• Domenico Cimarosa, Oboe Concerto in C major (arranged)
• Olivier Messiaen, Concert à quatre
• Francis Poulenc, Oboe Sonata
• Madeleine Dring, Three Piece Suite arr. Roger Lord
• Madeleine Dring, Trio for oboe, flute and piano
• Benjamin Britten, Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, op. 49, Temporal Variations, Two Insect Pieces, Phantasy Quartet, op. 2
• Robert Schumann, Three Romances for oboe or violin and piano
• Karlheinz Stockhausen, In Freundschaft, for oboe, Nr. 46⅔, Oboe for oboe and electronic music (from Orchester-Finalisten, scene 2 of Mittwoch aus Licht)
• Edmund Rubbra, Oboe Sonata
• Carl Nielsen, Two Fantasy Pieces for Oboe and Piano, op. 2
• Alessandro Marcello, Concerto in D minor
• Ralph Vaughan Williams, Concerto for Oboe and Strings, Ten Blake Songs for oboe and tenor
• Camille Saint-Saëns, Sonata for Oboe and Piano in D Major
• Sergei Prokofiev, Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Bass op. 39 (1923)
• Bohuslav Martinů, Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra
• Darius Milhaud, Les rêves de Jacob, op. 294, for oboe, violin, viola, cello, and doublebass (1949); Sonatina, op. 337, for oboe and piano (1954)
• Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra (1952)
• Carlos Chávez, Upingos, for unaccompanied oboe
• Hans Werner Henze, Doppio concerto, for oboe, harp, and string orchestra (1966)
• Bruno Maderna, 3 oboe concertos (1962–63) (1967) (1973); Grande aulodia, for flute, oboe, and orchestra (1970), Aulodia for Oboe d´amore (and guitar ad Libitum)
• Witold Lutosławski, Double Concerto for Oboe, Harp, and Chamber Orchestra
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Oboe Concerto
• Paul Hindemith, Sonata for Oboe and Piano
• Samuel Barber, Canzonetta, op. 48, for oboe and string orchestra (1977–78, orch. completed by Charles Turner)
• Igor Stravinsky, Pastorale (transcribed in 1933 for Violin and Wind Quartet)
• Elliott Carter, Oboe Concerto (1986–87); Trilogy, for oboe and harp (1992); Quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello (2001)
• Heinz Holliger, Sonata, for unaccompanied oboe (1956–57/99); Mobile, for oboe and harp (1962); Trio, for oboe (doubling English horn), viola, and harp (1966); Studie über Mehrklänge, for unaccompanied oboe (1971); Sechs Stücke, for oboe (doubling oboe d’amore) and harp (1998–99)
• Toru Takemitsu, Distance for Oboe (and Sho [ad libit.] (1971)
• Toru Takemitsu, Entre-Temps for Oboe and String Quartett (1981)
• Jan Dismas Zelenka (1723) Concertanti, Oboe Trios and other works ^[13]
• Tchaikovsky, Theme to Swan Lake
• Maurice Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin

Use in non-classical music[link]

While the oboe is rarely used in musical genres other than Western classical, there have been a few notable exceptions.

Traditional and folk music[link]

Although folk oboes are still used in many European folk music traditions, the modern oboe has been little used in folk music. One exception was Derek Bell, harpist for the Irish group The Chieftains, who used the instrument in some performances and recordings. The United States contra dance band Wild Asparagus, based in western Massachusetts, also uses the oboe, played by David Cantieni. The folk musician Paul Sartin plays the oboe in several English folk bands including Faustus and Bellowhead. Welsh bagpipe player and bagpipe maker Jonathan Shorland plays a 'rustic oboe' similar to the Breton 'piston' with the bands Primeaval and Juice. He formerly played with Fernhill, who play traditional Welsh music. The popular traditional music of Brittany boasts a significant professional class of musicians playing increasingly sophisticated double reed instruments, supported by professional instrument makers, reed manufacturers and the educational system. The Breton 'Piston' Oboe and Bombard have expanded from traditional roles into genres as diverse as jazz, rock, and classical music.

Jazz[link]

Since 1996, Jean-Luc Fillon is the main musician playing oboe (and English horn) at the international level in jazz music.^{[citation needed]} Nevertheless this instrument remains very rare throughout the world and in jazz history. Some early bands, most notably that of Paul Whiteman, included it for coloristic purposes. The multi-instrumentalist Garvin Bushell (1902–1991) played the oboe in jazz bands as early as 1924 and used the instrument throughout his career, eventually recording with John Coltrane in 1961.^[14] Gil Evans scored for the instrument in his famous Miles Davis collaboration Sketches of Spain. Though primarily a tenor saxophone and flute player, Yusef Lateef was among the first (in 1963) to use the oboe as a solo instrument in modern jazz performances and recordings. Composer and double bassist Charles Mingus gave the oboe a brief but prominent role (played by Dick Hafer) in his composition "I.X. Love" on the 1963 album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. Marshall Allen occasionally played an oboe with Sun Ra.

With the birth of Jazz fusion in the late 1960s, and its continuous development through the following decade, the oboe started to fulfill a more important role in composition, replacing on some occasions the saxophone as the focal point. The oboe was used with great success by the Welsh multi-instrumentalist Karl Jenkins in his work with the groups Nucleus and Soft Machine, and by the American woodwind player Paul McCandless, co-founder of the Paul Winter Consort and later Oregon. Romeo Penque also played the oboe on Roland Kirk's 1975 album Return of the 5000 Lb. Man, in the song "Theme for the Eulipions."

The 1980s saw an increasing number of oboists try their hand at non-classical work, and many players of note have recorded and performed alternative music on oboe. Some present-day jazz groups influenced by classical music, such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra, feature the oboe.

Double reedist Charles Pillow makes use of oboe and has made an instructional recording for jazz oboe.^[15]

Rock and pop[link]

The oboe has been used sporadically in rock/pop recordings (The Carpenters "For all we Know" 1970) , generally by studio musicians on recordings of specific songs.

In the 2000s, Robbie J. de Klerk, the vocalist of the Dutch melodic doom/death metal band Another Messiah^[16] also played the oboe in most songs. In America, the band Hoboe defines itself as a rock band showcasing amplified oboe since 2000, fronted by oboist Zen Ben.^[17]

• For a historical sampling of songs featuring the oboe see Oboes in popular music

Solo Oboe A synthetic midi oboe can be heard in this sample as the highest notes performed to give the feel of the entire composition. Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Film music[link]

The oboe is frequently featured in film music, often to underscore a particularly poignant or sad scene, for example in the motion picture Born on the Fourth of July, where an oboe delicately takes the theme with a romantic and harmonic touch before the strings hand it over once again to the trumpet. One of the most prominent uses of the oboe in a film score is Ennio Morricone's "Gabriel's Oboe" theme from the 1986 film The Mission.

It is featured as a solo instrument in the theme "Across the Stars" from the John Williams score to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The oboe is also used in "The Search" from the Basil Poledouris score to Conan The Barbarian.

Ilaiyaraja, a famous Indian film music composer, has also used the oboe in much of his film music. Examples include "Dalapathi" (1991); the title track of "Aditya 369" (1991); “Pazhassiraja” (2009); and “Nandalaala”(2010). The oboe has also been used by more recent Indian music composers, such as A. R. Rahman, who has used it in the movie "Jodha Akbar" (2008).

Famous oboists[link]

Oboe manufacturers[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Baines, Anthony: 1967, Woodwind Instruments and Their History, third edition, with a foreword by Sir Adrian Boult. London: Faber and Faber.
• Beckett, Morgan Hughes: 2008, "The Sensuous Oboe". Orange, CA: Scuffin University Press. ISBN 0-456-00432-7.
• Burgess, Geoffrey, and Bruce Haynes: 2004, The Oboe. The Yale Musical Instrument Series. New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09317-9.
• Carse, Adam: 1965, Musical Wind Instruments: A History of the Wind Instruments Used in European Orchestras and Wind-Bands from the Later Middle Ages up to the Present Time New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80005-5.
• Gioielli, Mauro: 1999. "La 'calamaula' di Eutichiano". Utriculus 8, no. 4 (32) (October–December): 44–45.
• Harris-Warrick, Rebecca: 1990, "A Few Thoughts on Lully's hautbois" Early Music 18, no. 1 (February, "The Baroque Stage II"): 97-98+101-102+105-106.
• Haynes, Bruce: 1985, Music for Oboe, 1650-1800: A Bibliography. Fallen Leaf Reference Books in Music, 8755-268X; no. 4. Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press. ISBN 0-914913-03-4.
• Haynes, Bruce: 1988, "Lully and the Rise of the Oboe as Seen in Works of Art". Early Music 16, no. 3 (August): 324–38.
• Haynes, Bruce: 2001, The Eloquent Oboe: A History of the Hautboy 1640–1760. Oxford Early Music Series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816646-X.
• Howe, Robert: 2003, "The Boehm System Oboe and its Role in the Development of the Modern Oboe". Galpin Society Journal 56:27–60 +plates on 190–92.
• Howe, Robert, and Peter Hurd: 2004, "The Heckelphone at 100". Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 30:98–165.
• Joppig, Gunther: 1988. The Oboe and the Bassoon, translated by Alfred Clayton. Portland: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0-931340-12-8.
• Kushner, Tony: 1993. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, single-volume edition. New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN 1-55936-107-7.
• Marcuse, Sybil: 1975, Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary Revised edition, The Norton Library, New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-00758-8

External links[link]

• Peter Wuttke: The Haynes-Catalog bibliography of literature for oboe written between 1650 and 1800.
• Experiments in Jazz Oboe by Alison Wilson (archive link, was dead)
• Oboe Reed Diagram
• Choosing the Right Oboe. Do you need a Professional, Intermediate or Student oboe
• Oboist Liang Wang: His Reeds Come First NPR story by Debbie Elliott
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Oboe". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Oboe sound gallery of clips of dozens of prominent oboists in the United States, Europe, and Australia

v t e Members of the oboe family Piccolo oboe Piccolo heckelphone Oboe Baroque oboe Oboe d'amore Cor anglais (English horn) Oboe da caccia Bass oboe Heckelphone Lupophon Contrabass oboe

Nicholas Daniel (born 9 January 1962) is a British oboist and conductor. In 2003 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Leicester International Music Festival.

Awards[link]

Nicholas Daniel won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 1980 and was awarded the 2011 Queen's Medal for Music.^[1]

Teaching posts[link]

Daniel was Professor of Oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for ten years, then in 1997 became Professor of Oboe and Conducting at the Indiana University School of Music. He then was invited to be Prince Consort Professor of Oboe at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2004, he was named Professor of Oboe at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen, Germany.

Performing ensembles[link]

Nicholas Daniel is a founding member of the Haffner Wind Ensemble and the Britten Sinfonia, and formed a duo with pianist Julius Drake in 1981.^[2]

As Principal Oboist of the Britten Sinfonia, Daniel has frequently appeared as a member of the orchestra and also as a soloist/director. In 2009 the Britten Sinfonia released its first own label recording, which features Nicholas Daniel in John Tavener's Songs of the Sky.

Commissions[link]

Daniel has commissioned and premiered many new works for the oboe, to increase its status as a solo instrument. Such works include:

• The Fabric of Dreams by Michael Zev Gordon (2006)^[3]
• Kaleidoscopes by John Tavener (2006)^[4]
• Sorella by Rory Boyle (2007).^[5]
• Oboe Concerto by James MacMillan (2010). ^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site

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A portrait of Antonio Vivaldi in 1725

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") because of his red hair, was an Italian^[1] Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi worked from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income.

Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers.

Childhood[link]

The church where Vivaldi was baptised: San Giovanni Battista in Bragora, Sestiere di Castello, Venice

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice, the capital of the Republic of Venice in 1678. He was baptized immediately after his birth at his home by the midwife, which led to the belief that his life was somehow in danger. Though not known for certain, the immediate baptism was most likely due either to his poor health or to an earthquake that shook the city that day. In the trauma of the earthquake, Vivaldi's mother may have dedicated him to the priesthood.^[2] Vivaldi's official church baptism did not take place until two months later.^[3]

Vivaldi's parents were Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio, as recorded in the register of San Giovanni in Bragora.^[4] Vivaldi had five siblings: Margarita Gabriela, Cecilia Maria, Bonaventura Tomaso, Zanetta Anna, and Francesco Gaetano.^[5] Giovanni Battista, a barber before becoming a professional violinist, taught Antonio to play the violin, and then toured Venice playing the violin with his young son. He probably taught him at an early age, judging by Vivaldi's extensive musical knowledge at the age of 24 when he started working at the Ospedale della Pietà.^[6] Giovanni Battista was one of the founders of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia, an association of musicians.^[7]

The president of the Sovvegno was Giovanni Legrenzi, a composer of the early Baroque and maestro di cappella at St. Mark's Basilica. It is possible that Legrenzi gave the young Antonio his first lessons in composition. The Luxembourg scholar Walter Kolneder has discerned in the early liturgical work Laetatus sum (RV Anh 31, written in 1691 at the age of 13) the influence of Legrenzi's style. Vivaldi's father may have been a composer himself: in 1689, an opera titled La Fedeltà sfortunata was composed by a Giovanni Battista Rossi, and this was the name under which Vivaldi's father had joined the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia:^[8] "Rosso" is Italian for "Red", and would have referred to the colour of his hair, a family trait.

Vivaldi's health was problematic. His symptoms, strettezza di petto ("tightness of the chest"), have been interpreted as a form of asthma.^[3] This did not prevent him from learning to play the violin, composing or taking part in musical activities,^[3] although it did stop him from playing wind instruments. In 1693, at the age of 15, he began studying to become a priest.^[9] He was ordained in 1703, aged 25. He was soon nicknamed il Prete Rosso, "The Red Priest", because of his red hair.^[10] Not long after his ordination, in 1704, he was given a reprieve from celebrating the Holy Mass because of his ill health. Vivaldi only said Mass as a priest a few times. He appears to have withdrawn from priestly duties, but he remained a priest.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] At the Conservatorio dell'Ospedale della Pietà

In September 1703, Vivaldi became maestro di violino (master of violin) at an orphanage called the Pio Ospedale della Pietà (Devout Hospital of Mercy) in Venice.^[1] While Vivaldi is most famous as a composer, he was regarded as an exceptional technical violinist as well. The German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach referred to Vivaldi as "the famous composer and violinist" and said that "Vivaldi played a solo accompaniment excellently, and at the conclusion he added a free fantasy [an improvised cadenza] which absolutely astounded me, for it is hardly possible that anyone has ever played, or ever will play, in such a fashion."^[11]

Vivaldi was only 25 when he started working at the Ospedale della Pietà. Over the next thirty years he composed most of his major works while working there.^[12] There were four similar institutions in Venice; their purpose was to give shelter and education to children who were abandoned or orphaned, or whose families could not support them. They were financed by funds provided by the Republic.^[13] The boys learned a trade and had to leave when they reached 15. The girls received a musical education, and the most talented stayed and became members of the Ospedale's renowned orchestra and choir.

Shortly after Vivaldi's appointment, the orphans began to gain appreciation and esteem abroad, too. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas and sacred vocal music for them.^[14] These sacred works, which number over 60, are varied: they included solo motets and large-scale choral works for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra.^[15] In 1704, the position of teacher of viola all'inglese was added to his duties as violin instructor.^[16] The position of maestro di coro, which was at one time filled by Vivaldi, required a lot of time and work. He had to compose an oratorio or concerto at every feast and teach the orphans both music theory and how to play certain instruments.^[17]

His relationship with the board of directors of the Ospedale was often strained. The board had to take a vote every year on whether to keep a teacher. The vote on Vivaldi was seldom unanimous, and went 7 to 6 against him in 1709.^[18] After a year as a freelance musician, he was recalled by the Ospedale with a unanimous vote in 1711; clearly during his year's absence the board realized the importance of his role.^[18] He became responsible for all of the musical activity of the institution^[19] when he was promoted to maestro di' concerti (music director) in 1716.^[20]

In 1705, the first collection (Connor Cassara) of his works was published by Giuseppe Sala:^[21] his Opus 1 is a collection of 12 sonatas for two violins and basso continuo, in a conventional style.^[16] In 1709, a second collection of 12 sonatas for violin and basso continuo appeared, his Opus 2.^[22] A real breakthrough as a composer came with his first collection of 12 concerti for one, two, and four violins with strings, L'estro armonico Opus 3, which was published in Amsterdam in 1711 by Estienne Roger,^[23] dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. The prince sponsored many musicians including Alessandro Scarlatti and Georg Frideric Handel. He was a musician himself, and Vivaldi probably met him in Venice.^[24] L'estro armonico was a resounding success all over Europe. It was followed in 1714 by La stravaganza Opus 4, a collection of concerti for solo violin and strings,^[25] dedicated to an old violin student of Vivaldi's, the Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin.^[26]

In February 1711, Vivaldi and his father traveled to Brescia, where his setting of the Stabat Mater (RV 621) was played as part of a religious festival. The work seems to have been written in haste: the string parts are simple, the music of the first three movements is repeated in the next three, and not all the text is set. Nevertheless, perhaps in part because of the forced essentiality of the music, the work is one of his early masterpieces.

Despite his frequent travels from 1718, the Pietà paid him 2 sequins to write two concerti a month for the orchestra and to rehearse with them at least five times when in Venice. The Pietà's records show that he was paid for 140 concerti between 1723 and 1733.

Opera impresario[link]

First edition of Juditha triumphans^[27]

In early 18th century Venice, opera was the most popular musical entertainment. It proved most profitable for Vivaldi. There were several theaters competing for the public's attention. Vivaldi started his career as an opera composer as a sideline: his first opera, Ottone in villa (RV 729) was performed not in Venice, but at the Garzerie Theater in Vicenza in 1713.^[28] The following year, Vivaldi became the impresario of the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo (RV 727) was performed. The work was not to the public's taste, and it closed after a couple of weeks, being replaced with a repeat of a different work already given the previous year.^[24]

In 1715, he presented Nerone fatto Cesare (RV 724, now lost), with music by seven different composers, of which he was the leader. The opera contained eleven arias, and was a success. In the late season, Vivaldi planned to put on an opera composed entirely by him, Arsilda regina di Ponto (RV 700), but the state censor blocked the performance. The main character, Arsilda, falls in love with another woman, Lisea, who is pretending to be a man.^[24] Vivaldi got the censor to accept the opera the following year, and it was a resounding success.

At this period, the Pietà commissioned several liturgical works. The most important were two oratorios. Moyses Deus Pharaonis, (RV 643) is lost. The second, Juditha triumphans (RV 644), celebrates the victory of the Republic of Venice against the Turks and the recapture of the island of Corfù. Composed in 1716, it is one of his sacred masterpieces. All eleven singing parts were performed by girls of the Pietà, both the female and male roles. Many of the arias include parts for solo instruments—recorders, oboes, clarinets^{[citation needed]}, violas d'amore, and mandolins—that showcased the range of talents of the girls.^[29]

Also in 1716, Vivaldi wrote and produced two more operas, L'incoronazione di Dario (RV 719) and La costanza trionfante degli amori e degli odi (RV 706). The latter was so popular that it performed two years later, re-edited and retitled Artabano re dei Parti (RV 701, now lost). It was also performed in Prague in 1732. In the following years, Vivaldi wrote several operas that were performed all over Italy.

His progressive operatic style caused him some trouble with more conservative musicians, like Benedetto Marcello, a magistrate and amateur musician who wrote a pamphlet denouncing him and his operas. The pamphlet, Il teatro alla moda, attacks Vivaldi without mentioning him directly. The cover drawing shows a boat (the Sant'Angelo), on the left end of which stands a little angel wearing a priest's hat and playing the violin. The Marcello family claimed ownership of the Teatro Sant'Angelo, and a long legal battle had been fought with the management for its restitution, without success. The obscure writing under the picture mentions non-existent places and names: ALDIVIVA is an anagram of A. Vivaldi.

In a letter written by Vivaldi to his patron Marchese Bentivoglio in 1737, he makes reference to his "94 operas". Only around 50 operas by Vivaldi have been discovered, and no other documentation of the remaining operas exists. Although Vivaldi may have exaggerated, in his dual role of composer and impresario it is plausible that he may either have written or been responsible for the production of as many as 94 operas during a career which by then had spanned almost 25 years.^[30] While Vivaldi certainly composed many operas in his time, he never reached the prominence of other great composers like Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolph Hasse, Leonardo Leo, and Baldassare Galuppi, as evidenced by his inability to keep a production running for any extended period of time in any major opera house.^[31]

His most successful operas were La constanza trionfante and Farnace which garnered six revivals each.^[31]

[edit] Mantua and The Four Seasons

Caricature by P.L.Ghezzi, Rome (1723)

	"La primavera" (Spring) – Movement 1: Allegro from The Four Seasons A 2000 live performance by Wichita State University Chamber Players.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In 1717 or 1718, Vivaldi was offered a new prestigious position as Maestro di Cappella of the court of prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua.^[32] He moved there for three years and produced several operas, among which was Tito Manlio (RV 738). In 1721, he was in Milan, where he presented the pastoral drama La Silvia (RV 734, 9 arias survive). He visited Milan again the following year with the oratorio L'adorazione delli tre re magi al bambino Gesù (RV 645, also lost). In 1722 he moved to Rome, where he introduced his operas' new style. The new pope Benedict XIII invited Vivaldi to play for him. In 1725, Vivaldi returned to Venice, where he produced four operas in the same year.

During this period Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons, four violin concertos depicting scenes appropriate for each season. Three of the concerti are of original conception, while the first, "Spring", borrows motifs from a Sinfonia in the first act of his contemporaneous opera "Il Giustino". The inspiration for the concertos was probably the countryside around Mantua. They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, ice-skating children, and warming winter fires. Each concerto is associated with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi, describing the scenes depicted in the music. They were published as the first four concertos in a collection of twelve, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Opus 8, published in Amsterdam by Le Cène in 1725.

During his time in Mantua, Vivaldi became acquainted with an aspiring young singer Anna Tessieri Girò who was to become his student, protégée, and favorite prima donna.^[33] Anna, along with her older half-sister Paolina, became part of Vivaldi's entourage and regularly accompanied him on his many travels. There was speculation about the nature of Vivaldi's and Giro's relationship, but no evidence to indicate anything beyond friendship and professional collaboration. Although Vivaldi's relationship with Anna Girò was questioned, he adamantly denied any romantic relationship in a letter to his patron Bentivoglio dated 16 November 1737.^[34]

Later life and death[link]

During the height of his career, Vivaldi received commissions from European nobility and royalty. The wedding cantata Gloria e Imeneo (RV 687) was written for the marriage of Louis XV. Vivaldi's Opus 9, La Cetra, was dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. In 1728, Vivaldi met the emperor while he was visiting Trieste to oversee the construction of a new port. Charles admired the music of the Red Priest so much that he is said to have spoken more with the composer during their one meeting than he spoke to his ministers in over two years. He gave Vivaldi the title of knight, a gold medal and an invitation to Vienna. Vivaldi gave Charles a manuscript copy of La Cetra, a set of concerti almost completely different from the set of the same title published as Opus 9. The printing was probably delayed, forcing Vivaldi to gather an improvised collection for the emperor.

Frontispiece of Il teatro alla moda

Accompanied by his father, Vivaldi traveled to Vienna and Prague in 1730, where his opera Farnace (RV 711) was presented.^[35] Some of his later operas were created in collaboration with two of Italy's major writers of the time. L'Olimpiade and Catone in Utica were written by Pietro Metastasio, the major representative of the Arcadian movement and court poet in Vienna. La Griselda was rewritten by the young Carlo Goldoni from an earlier libretto by Apostolo Zeno.

Like many composers of the time, the final years of Vivaldi's life found him in financial difficulties. His compositions were no longer held in such high esteem as they once were in Venice; changing musical tastes quickly made them outmoded. In response, Vivaldi chose to sell off sizeable numbers of his manuscripts at paltry prices to finance his migration to Vienna.^[36] The reasons for Vivaldi's departure from Venice are unclear, but it seems likely that, after the success of his meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he wished to take up the position of a composer in the imperial court. On his way to Vienna, Vivaldi may have stopped in Graz to see Anna Girò.^[37]

It is also likely that Vivaldi went to Vienna to stage operas, especially since he took up residence near the Kärntnertortheater. Shortly after Vivaldi's arrival in Vienna, Charles VI died, a stroke of bad luck that left the composer without royal protection or a steady source of income. Vivaldi died a pauper^[38][39] not long after the emperor, on the night between 27 and 28 July 1741 at the age of 63,^[40] of "internal infection", in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker. On 28 July he was buried in a simple grave at the Hospital Burial Ground in Vienna. Vivaldi's funeral took place at St. Stephen's Cathedral, where the young Joseph Haydn was then a choir boy. The cost of his funeral included a Kleingeläut (pauper's peal of bells).^[41]

He was buried next to Karlskirche, in an area now part of the site of the Technical Institute. The house Vivaldi lived in while in Vienna was torn down; the Hotel Sacher is built on part of the site. Memorial plaques have been placed at both locations as well as a Vivaldi "star" in the Viennese Musikmeile and a monument at the Rooseveltplatz.

Only three portraits of Vivaldi are known to survive: an engraving, an ink sketch and an oil painting. The engraving, by Francois Morellon La Cave, was made in 1725 and shows Vivaldi holding a sheet of music. The ink sketch was done by Ghezzi in 1723 and shows only Vivaldi's head and shoulders in profile. The oil painting found in the Liceo Musicale of Bologna gives us possibly the most accurate picture and shows Vivaldi's red hair under his blond wig.^[42]

Style and influence[link]

Vivaldi's music was innovative. He brightened the formal and rhythmic structure of the concerto, in which he looked for harmonic contrasts and innovative melodies and themes; many of his compositions are flamboyantly, almost playfully, exuberant.

Johann Sebastian Bach was deeply influenced by Vivaldi's concertos and arias (recalled in his St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and cantatas). Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi's concerti for solo keyboard, three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065) based upon the concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).

Posthumous reputation[link]

During his lifetime, Vivaldi's popularity quickly made him famous in other countries, including France where musical taste was less dictated by fashion than elsewhere.^{[citation needed]} This popularity dwindled. After the Baroque period, Vivaldi's published concerti were relatively unknown, and largely ignored, even after Felix Mendelssohn rekindled interest in Bach. Even Vivaldi's most famous work, The Four Seasons, was unknown in its original edition.

In the early 20th century, Fritz Kreisler's Vivaldi-styled concerto (which he passed off as an original Vivaldi work) helped revive Vivaldi's reputation. This spurred the French scholar Marc Pincherle to begin an academic study of Vivaldi's oeuvre. Many Vivaldi manuscripts were rediscovered, and were acquired by the National University of Turin Library with generous sponsorship of Turinese businessmen Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, in memory of their sons. This led to renewed interest in Vivaldi by, among others, Mario Rinaldi, Alfredo Casella, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, Desmond Chute, Arturo Toscanini, Arnold Schering, and Louis Kaufman. These figures were instrumental in the Vivaldi revival of the 20th century.

In 1926, in a monastery in Piedmont, researchers discovered 14 folios of Vivaldi's work, previously thought lost during the Napoleonic wars. Some volumes in the numbered set were missing; these turned up in the collections of the descendants of the Grand Duke Durazzo who had acquired the monastery complex in the 18th century. The volumes contained 300 concertos, 19 operas and over 100 vocal-instrumental works.^[43]

The resurrection of Vivaldi's unpublished works in the 20th century is mostly due to the efforts of Alfredo Casella, who in 1939 organised the historic Vivaldi Week, in which the rediscovered Gloria (RV 589) and l'Olimpiade were revived. Since World War II, Vivaldi's compositions have enjoyed wide success. In 1947, the Venetian businessman Antonio Fanna founded the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, with the composer Gian Francesco Malipiero as its artistic director, having the purpose of promoting Vivaldi's music and publishing new editions of his works. Historically informed performances seem to have increased Vivaldi's fame further.

Recent rediscoveries of works by Vivaldi include two psalm settings of Nisi Dominus (RV 803, in eight movements) and Dixit Dominus (RV 807, in eleven movements), identified in 2003 and 2005, respectively, by the Australian scholar Janice Stockigt. Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot called RV 807 "arguably the best nonoperatic work from Vivaldi's pen to come to light since... the 1920s".^[44] Vivaldi's lost 1730 opera Argippo (RV 697) was re-discovered in 2006 by harpsichordist and conductor Ondřej Macek, whose Hofmusici orchestra performed the work at Prague Castle on 3 May 2008, its first performance since 1730.

In popular culture[link]

The movie Vivaldi, a Prince in Venice was completed in 2005 as an Italian-French co-production under the direction of Jean-Louis Guillermou. In 2005, ABC Radio National commissioned a radio play about Vivaldi, which was written by Sean Riley. Entitled The Angel and the Red Pries, the play was later adapted into a stage version and performed at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.^[45]

The music of Vivaldi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Corelli, has been included in the theories of Alfred Tomatis on the effects of music on human behaviour and used in music therapy.^{[citation needed]}

Works[link]

A Vivaldi work is identified by RV number, which refers to its place in the "Ryom-Verzeichnis" or "Répertoire des oeuvres d'Antonio Vivaldi", a catalog created in the 20th century by musicologist Peter Ryom.

Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) of 1723 is his most famous work. Part of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest between Harmony and Invention"), it depicts moods and scenes from each of the four seasons. This work has been described as an outstanding instance of pre-19th Century program music.^[46]

Vivaldi wrote more than 500 other concertos. About 350 of these are for solo instrument and strings, of which 230 are for violin, the others being for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, viola d'amore, recorder, lute, or mandolin. About 40 are for two instruments and strings, and about 30 are for three or more instruments and strings.

As well as about 46 operas, Vivaldi composed a large body of sacred choral music. Other works include sinfonias, about 90 sonatas, and chamber music.

Some sonatas for flute, published as Il Pastor Fido, have been erroneously attributed to Vivaldi, but were composed by Nicolas Chédeville.

Vivaldi's Gloria (a collection of choral pieces for SATB) is a very well known and widely praised piece. The research of Richard Vendome showed that Vivaldi wrote this piece while director of music at a girl's dance school, implying that he intended it to be sung by females - including the tenor and bass parts. While this thesis is controversial, Vendome has proved it possible with his own 'SPAV' choir, dedicated to the works of Vivaldi and his students, in which females sing bass and tenor, along with soprano and alto, all at pitch.^{[citation needed]}

Notes[link]

References and further reading[link]

• Bukofzer, Manfred (1947). Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-09745-5.
• Cross, Eric (1984). Review of I libretti vivaldiani: recensione e collazione dei testimoni a stampa by Anna Laura Bellina; Bruno Brizi; Maria Grazia Pensa in Music & Letters, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 62–64
• Formichetti, Gianfranco Venezia e il prete col violino. Vita di Antonio Vivaldi, Bompiani (2006), ISBN 88-452-5640-5.
• Heller, Karl Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice, Amadeus Press (1997), ISBN 1-57467-015-8
• Kolneder, Walter Antonio Vivaldi: Documents of His Life and Works, C F Peters Corp (1983), ISBN 3-7959-0338-6
• Barbara Quick, Vivaldi's Virgins (novel), HarperCollins (2007), ISBN 978-0-06-089052-0.
• André Romijn. Hidden Harmonies: The Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi, 2007 ISBN 978-0-9554100-1-7
• Eleanor Selfridge-Field (1994). Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York, Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-28151-5.
• Michael Talbot, Antonio Vivaldi, Insel Verlag (1998), ISBN 3-458-33917-5
• Michael Talbot: "Antonio Vivaldi", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 26 August 2006), (subscription access)
• Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque, H. C. Robbins Landon, 1996 University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-46842-9
• Sarah Bruce Kelly: The Red Priest's Annina, 2009 Bel Canto Press, ISBN 978-0-578-02566-7
• Sarah Bruce Kelly: Vivaldi's Muse, 2011 Bel Canto Press, ISBN 978-0-9836304-0-1

External links[link]

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Antonio Vivaldi

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Antonio Vivaldi

• Catalog of instrumental works
• Complete works catalog
• Works by or about Antonio Vivaldi in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Michael Talbot: Recent Vivaldi Discoveries from the online magazine Goldberg.
• Antonio Vivaldi by Fréderic Délaméa (Translated by Kirk McElhearn) from Goldberg.
• Two Vivaldi biopics may duel at the box office
• Free scores by Antonio Vivaldi at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Antonio Vivaldi in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Antonio Vivaldi in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by Antonio Vivaldi
• Vivaldi biography. Free English eBooks: 1. Talbot, M. Vivaldi. 1993; 2. Heller, K. Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice. 1997
• project Anima Veneziana (Ryom, Peter. Vivaldi Werkverzeichnis. 1. Auflage. 2007. Breitkopf & Härtel. 664 S., format: JPG)
• The Seasons in interactive hypermedia Allegro, Largo, Allegro (Shockwave required) at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext
• Allegro molto from 'Winter' by Vivaldi
• Video of ballet to music by Antonio Vivaldi
• Informations about the research project on the Saxon court's instrumental music collection in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, in German (open source online publication of all Vivaldi manuscripts from the Pisendel collection)
• Fata Tiganca by Vivaldi

Ennio Morricone
Morricone at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival
Background information
Also known as	Maestro
Born	(1928-11-10) November 10, 1928 (age 83)
Origin	Rome, Italy
Genres	Film music, classical music, pop music, jazz, lounge music, easy listening
Occupations	Composer, orchestrator, music director, conductor, trumpeter
Years active	1946–present
Associated acts	Bruno Nicolai, Alessandro Alessandroni, Mina, Yo-Yo Ma, Mireille Mathieu, Joan Baez, Andrea Bocelli, Roger Waters, Sarah Brightman, Amii Stewart, Paul Anka, Milva, Gianni Morandi, Dalida, Catherine Spaak, Pet Shop Boys, Hayley Westenra, and others
Website	http://www.enniomorricone.it

Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, Italian pronunciation: [ˈɛnnjo morriˈkoːne], (born November 10, 1928) is an Italian composer and conductor, who has written music for more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years.^[1] His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces. Morricone is most famous for his work in the Spaghetti Westerns directed by his friend Sergio Leone, including A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) but his career includes a wide range of composition genres making him one of the film world's most versatile artists. He is considered as one of the most influential film music composers of the 20th century.

Born in Rome, Italy, Morricone took up the trumpet as a child and attended the National Academy of Santa Cecilia to take lessons on the instrument at the age of nine. He formally entered a conservatory at the age of 12, enrolling in a four-year harmony programme. He received his trumpet diploma in 1946 and started working professionally, composing the music to "Il Mattino" ("The Morning"). Morricone soon gained popularity by writing his first background music for radio dramas and quickly moved into film.^[2]

In the 1950s he received the "Diploma in Instrumentation for Band" (fanfare) where he won a diploma in Composition under the composer Goffredo Petrassi. In 1955, Morricone started to ghost write and arrange music for other, already established film composers. Morricone soon came to the attention of his former school friend Sergio Leone, who hired Morricone to compose the music to some of his best known films. Together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone's different version of the Western, A Fistful of Dollars.

In the 80s and 90s, Morricone continued to write the music for Leone's later films, including Once Upon a Time in America (1984). He also composed the music to Joffé's The Mission (1986), De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988). His more recent compositions include the scores for Malèna (2000), Fateless (2005), and Baaria - La porta del vento (2009).

Morricone has received two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five BAFTAs during 1979–1992, seven David di Donatello, eight Nastro d'Argento, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. In 2007, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music" and has been nominated for a further five Oscars in the category of Best Original Score during 1979–2001, but has never won competitively.

Biography[link]

Early career[link]

Ennio Morricone was born in Rome, the son of Libera and Mario Morricone, a jazz trumpeter.^[3] Morricone wrote his first compositions when he was six years old and was encouraged to develop his natural talents.^[4] Compelled to take up the trumpet, he attended the National Academy of Santa Cecilia to take lessons on the instrument at the age of nine. Morricone formally entered the conservatory in 1940 at the age of 12, enrolling in a four-year harmony program. According to various reports, he completed it in either two years or six months (date approximate).^[5] He studied the trumpet, composition, choral music, and choral direction under Goffredo Petrassi, who deeply influenced him and to whom Morricone has dedicated concert pieces.

These were the difficult years of World War II in the heavily bombed "open city"; the composer remarked that what he mostly remembered of those years was the hunger. His wartime experiences influenced many of his scores for films set in that period.

After he graduated, he continued to work in classical composition and arrangement. In 1946, Morricone received his trumpet diploma and in the same year he composed "Il Mattino" ("The Morning") for voice and piano on a text by Fukuko, first in a group of 7 "youth" Lieder. Other serious compositions are "Imitazione" (1947) for voice and piano on a text by Giacomo Leopardi and "Intimità" for voice and piano on a text by Olinto Dini.

In the early 1950s, Morricone began writing his first background music for radio dramas. Nonetheless he continued composing classical pieces as "Distacco I e Distacco II" for voice and piano on a text by Ranieri Gnoli, "Verrà la Morte" for contralto and piano on a text by Cesare Pavese, "Oboe Sommerso" for baritone and five instruments on a text by Salvatore Quasimodo.^[6]

Although the composer had received the "Diploma in Instrumentation for Band" (fanfare) in 1952, his studies concluded in 1954, obtaining a diploma in Composition under the composer Goffredo Petrassi. In 1955, Morricone started to write or arrange music for films credited to other already well-known composers (ghost writing). He occasionally adopted Anglicized pseudonyms, such as Dan Savio and Leo Nichols.

Morricone wrote more works in the climate of the Italian avant-garde. A few of these compositions have been made available on CD, such as "Ut", his trumpet concerto dedicated to the soloist Mauro Maur, one of his favorite musicians; some have yet to be premiered. From the mid-sixties and onwards, he was part of Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, a group of composers who performed and recorded avant garde free improvisations, even scoring a few films during the 1970s.

Leone film scores[link]

Well-versed in a variety of musical idioms from his RCA experience, Morricone began composing film scores in the early 1960s.^[5] Though his first films were undistinguished, Morricone's arrangement of an American folk song intrigued director and former schoolmate Sergio Leone. Leone hired Morricone, and together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone's different version of the Western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964).^[5] As budget strictures limited Morricone's access to a full orchestra, he used gunshots, cracking whips, whistle, voices, guimbarde (jaw harp), trumpets, and the new Fender electric guitar, instead of orchestral arrangements of Western standards à la John Ford. Morricone used his special effects to punctuate and comically tweak the action—cluing in the audience to the taciturn man's ironic stance.^[5] Though sonically bizarre for a movie score, Morricone's music was viscerally true to Leone's vision.

	The Good, The Bad and The Ugly main theme noicon From The Good, the Bad and the Ugly film score
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As memorable as Leone's close-ups, harsh violence, and black comedy, Morricone's work helped to expand the musical possibilities of film scoring.^[5] Morricone was initially billed on the film as Dan Savio.^[5]

Morricone composed music for over 40 Westerns (the last was North Star (1996)), most of them Spaghetti Westerns. He scored Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, from A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and including For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), as well as later films such as A Fistful of Dynamite (1971), My Name Is Nobody (1973), and A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe (1975). The collaboration with Leone is considered one of the exemplary collaborations between a director and a composer.

With the score of A Fistful of Dollars, Morricone began his 10-year collaboration with his childhood friend Alessandro Alessandroni and his Cantori Moderni. Alessandroni provided the whistling and the twanging guitar on the film scores, while his Cantori Moderni were a flexible troupe of modern singers. Morricone specifically exploited the solo soprano of the group, Edda Dell'Orso, at the height of her powers—"an extraordinary voice at my disposal".

In addition, Morricone composed music for many other, not so popular Spaghetti Westerns, including Duello nel Texas (1963), Le pistole non discutono (1964), A Pistol for Ringo (1965), The Return of Ringo (1965), Navajo Joe (1966), The Big Gundown, (1966), Face to Face (1967), Death Rides a Horse (1967), The Hellbenders (1967), A Bullet for the General (1967), The Mercenary (1968), Tepepa (1968), The Great Silence (1968), Guns for San Sebastian (1968), …And for a Roof a Sky Full of Stars (1968), The Five Man Army (1969), Queimada! (1969), Vamos a matar, compañeros (1970), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), Sonny and Jed (1972), and Buddy Goes West (1981).

Notable film scores[link]

	The Mission main theme - Gabriel's Oboe noicon From The Mission film score
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Most of Morricone's film scores of the 1960s were composed outside the Spaghetti Western genre, while still using Alessandroni's team. Their music included the themes for Il Malamondo (1964), Slalom (1965), The Battle of Algiers (1965), and Listen, Let's Make Love (1967). In 1968, Morricone reduced his work outside the movie business and wrote scores for 20 films in the same year. The scores included psychedelic accompaniment for Mario Bava's superhero romp Danger: Diabolik (1968). The next year marked the start of a series of evocative scores for Dario Argento's stylized thrillers, including The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1974).^[5] In 1970, Morricone wrote the score for Violent City. That same year, he received his first Nastro d'Argento for the music in Metti una sera a cena (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1969) and his second only a year later for Sacco e Vanzetti (Giuliano Montaldo, 1971), in which he had made a memorable collaboration with the legendary American folk singer and activist Joan Baez. In 1973, he scored a theme for the crime film Revolver (1973). Morricone composed the score for John Carpenter's science-fiction/horror movie The Thing (1982)^[7] as well as Brian De Palma's war drama Casualties of War (1989).^[8]

Morricone has worked for television, from a single title piece to variety shows and documentaries to TV series, including the US TV Western The Men From Shiloh (1970), Moses (1974) and Marco Polo (1982). One notable composition, "Chi Mai" was used in the films, Maddalena (1971) and Le Professionnel (1981) as well as the TV series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981). It was a surprise hit in the UK, almost topping the charts. He wrote the score for the Mafia television series La piovra seasons 2 to 10 from 1985 to 2001, including the themes "Droga e sangue" ("Drugs and Blood"), "La morale", and "L'immorale".^[9] Morricone worked as the conductor of seasons 3 to 5 of the series. He also worked as the music supervisor for the television project La bibbia ("The Bible"). In the late 1990s, he collaborated with his son, Andrea, on the Ultimo crime dramas. Their collaboration yielded the BAFTA-winning Nuovo cinema Paradiso. In 2003, Ennio Morricone scored another epic, for Japanese television, called Musashi and was the Taiga drama about Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's legendary warrior. A part of his "applied music" is now applied to Italian television films.

Concerts and live orchestrations[link]

Since 2001, Morricone has been on a world tour, the latter part sponsored by Giorgio Armani, with the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta, touring London (Barbican 2001; 75th birthday Concerto, Royal Albert Hall 2003), Paris, Verona, and Tokyo. Morricone performed his classic film scores at the Munich Philharmonie in 2005 and Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in London, UK, on 2006-12-01 and 2006-12-02.

Ennio Morricone at the United Nations Headquarters

He made his North American concert debut on January 29, 2007 Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City and four days later at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The previous evening, Morricone had already presented at the United Nations a concert comprising some of his film themes, as well as the cantata Voci dal silenzio to welcome the new Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. A Los Angeles Times review bemoaned the poor acoustics and opined of Morricone: "His stick technique is adequate, but his charisma as a conductor is zero." Morricone, though, has said: "Conducting has never been important to me. If the audience comes for my gestures, they had better stay outside."

On December 12, 2007, Morricone conducted the Roma Sinfonietta at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, presenting a selection of his own works. Together with the Roma Sinfonietta and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir, Morricone performed at the Opening Concerts of the Belfast Festival at Queen's, in the Waterfront Hall on October 17 and 18, 2008. Morricone and Roma Sinfonietta also held a concert at the Belgrade Arena (Belgrade, Serbia) on February 14, 2009.

On April 10, 2010, Morricone conducted a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London with the Roma Sinfonietta and (as in all of his previous London concerts) the Crouch End Festival Chorus. On August 27, 2010, he conducted a concert in Hungary. Two other concerts took place in Verona and Sofia (Bulgaria) on 11 and 17 September 2010.^[10]

Recent works[link]

Morricone provided the string arrangements on Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me" from the album Ringleader of the Tormentors in 2006.^[11]

Quentin Tarantino originally wanted Morricone to compose the soundtrack for his most recent film, Inglourious Basterds. However, Morricone refused because of the sped-up production schedule of the film.^[12][13][14] Tarantino did use several Morricone tracks from previous films in the soundtrack.

Morricone instead wrote the music for Baaria - La porta del vento, the most recent movie by Giuseppe Tornatore. The composer is also writing music for Tornatore's upcoming movie Leningrad.

In spring and summer 2010, Morricone worked with Hayley Westenra for a collaboration on her album Paradiso.^[15] The album features new songs written by Morricone, as well as some of his best known film compositions of the last 50 years.^[16][17] Hayley recorded the album with Morricone's orchestra in Rome during the summer of 2010.^[18][19][20]