Monsieur Vivaldi

[Despina dello Stagno]

I have posted a link to Chedeville's arrangement of the Seasons (the Op. 8 of the masses) on the Lost Sounds threat, but it has turned my thoughts to Vivaldi's popularity, most particularly in France.

At the time of his death he seems to have been held in regard almost as high as he is now. Another French example from the era when his following was as strong as the concept of copyright was weak is the Corrette Psalm 148 Laudate Dominum. (there are three youtube clips)

Is this sort of thing correctly a contrafact, where no words existed previously?

[doversoul1]

A related article by Paul Dyer of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.

http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/268588,vivaldi-refreshed-just-in-time-for-spring.aspx

[Despina dello Stagno]

Thanks for that interesting steer, doversoul.

I have just looked in the BUCEM catalogue to guage how popular he might have been in England at the time. There are a few imprints by Walsh (e.g. Ops 3 & 5), but it appears that, on the evidence of academic and country house libraries, to all intents and purposes he was not part of the wave of Italian gusto's to hit this country, and the Seasons were unknown here until the last century.

Is that correct?

[doversoul1]

According to Christopher Hogwood, Vivaldi’s music was known in England but, being of Venetian school, ‘less admired than Corelli’s music' which was from Rome (?).
(Handel (2007), p160).

Wasn’t the Four Seasons supposed to have been discovered in 1950 in New York?