Vivaldi, A :: Concerto en Do Majeur F. VI No. 4 [Concerto in C major F. VI No. 4]

Concerto en Do Majeur F. VI No. 4 [Concerto in C major F. VI No. 4]

Vivaldi, A

From the collection of Jean-Louis Beaumadier, Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Major is perhaps the most famous classical repertoire work for the piccolo.

"Vivaldi was the most original, popular, and influential Italian composer of his time, however was very quickly forgotten. Within a hundred years of his death, he had achieved the ultimate fate of most composers' complete oblivion. After he was finally rediscovered in the early twentieth century, and eventually became one of the most performed of all composers again, he often was written off as excessively prolific and facile. Stravinsky famously dismissed his entire career as "the same concerto four hundred times," an assessment that was not just unkind, but also unfair. We now know that he wrote more than five not four hundred concertos, in addition to operas (he once claimed ninety-four, no doubt with characteristic exaggeration; some twenty survive), cantatas, and trio sonatas. More than two thirds of Vivaldi's five hundred-plus concertos are for solo instrument violin (most plentifully, at more than 230 concertos!), bassoon, cello, oboe, and even mandolin (but no keyboards). A relatively meager three concertos are written for 'flautino,' a 'little flute' or high-pitched recorder that is the equivalent of today's piccolo. The solo role is more virtuosic and demanding than Vivaldi's normal woodwind writing (the solo enters with an unbroken string of eighty-four eighth notes, and that's just the beginning). Vivaldi must have had a superlative player in mind. The pattern is classic Vivaldi: the two outer movements are dazzling display pieces (the last seemingly endless run of triplets in the finale is particularly breathtaking especially for the performer); the central Largo is an eloquent, highly expressive monologue." - Phillip Huscher