Trio Sonata in d, Op. 1/8

We typically equate Antonio Vivaldi with the high-water mark of the instrumental concerto, and through his 450 works in that medium the “Red Priest” probably did more to solidify the presence of concerto form in the history of music. Nevertheless, he also wrote many pieces of chamber music, dozens of sacred vocal works, and at least 46 operas. He was a violinist of unrivaled ability and inventiveness, and the famous concertos are not the sole repository of these talents. Vivaldi’s influence on instrumental music—apart from the development of virtuosic and idiomatic string textures—emerges most forcefully in the strength with which he establishes the tonic key. Musicians may scoff at this composer’s pervasive diatonic scales and endless sequences that tread water, but in 1700 the tonal forces between chords in the major and minor keys were just beginning to feel their liberation from the older ecclesiastical modes. From now on there would be conventions regarding use of diatonic and chromatic pitches, secondary key centers would be selected from a small orbit, and the opposition between clear tonic and dominant keys would buttress the entire musical system (at least until 1900). Vivaldi’s celebration of the tonic note and triad would be taken over directly by the early symphonists in Mannheim and Austria, including Haydn.
The twelve trio sonatas op. 1 were written by Vivaldi while employed as maestro de’ concerti of the Pietà in Venice. The Pietà was one of the city’s four musical facilities set up for the benefit of orphans and invalids. Like Vivaldi himself, these institutions gradually shed their religious origins and became primarily devoted to musical training. Vivaldi remained there for over 40 years! He had just taken his post when the op. 1 sonatas were published in 1705; they were not his first compositions, only the first ones to be made publicly available in print. Not all of the advances referred to above were in place by 1705. Opus 1 still bears the stamp of his Italian predecessors, particularly Caldara and Corelli. The latter’s Folia theme and variations are imitated later in Vivaldi’s op. 1 no. 12.
The Sonata in D Minor, op. 1 no. 8, follows the four-movement, slow-fast-slow-fast scheme of so many Corellian sonate di chiesa (or “church sonatas”). Yet the use of dance titles for the second and fourth movements infuses a touch of the secular sonate di camera. The opening Largo can be traced in several details to a work by Corelli, although the complementary rhythmic relationship between the two violins is now regarded as feature taken from Caldara. The first violin plays exclusively in running sixteenth notes, whereas the second violin plays mostly eighth and quarter notes. One harmonic surprise awaits: in the middle of section B Vivaldi cadences in F minor, not a closely related key to the D minor tonic (though certainly accessible via F major, which is related).
The Corrente features echo-like repetitions at the close of both section A and B. Like the first movement and the finale, this dance is laid out as a simple binary form, with modulation to the dominant key at the middle, modulations without thematic development, and a final cadence home in tonic. This is not sonata form, though the pedal tone on A in the B section adds force to the eventual return of tonic in quasi-sonata-form fashion. The third movement, Grave, sounds much like a French overture with its characteristic dotted rhythms and highly punctuated rhetoric that suggests recitative. Here Vivaldi generates expressive impact from a striking contrast between stepwise and skipwise melodic motion. The sonata’s concluding Giga opens with literal imitation at the unison (i.e., a canon) before breaking off when the theme moves to the bass. In section B the imitation is more fugal (entries on A, then D). In both cases Vivaldi shifts back and forth between closely-spaced imitative polyphony and a freer instrumental counterpoint.

(c) Jason Stell