Early Music Advance Access published online on November 3, 2009
Early Music, doi:10.1093/em/cap101
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
‘... so beautiful that I was almost beside myself’: Vivaldi and the Basel Collegium Musicum
Robert Kintzel is an American linguist and historian specializing in Germanic languages and German history. He also has a deep interest in European classical music, and in 2005 he began publishing a series of Vivaldi articles in the journal Studi vivaldiani. He is currently continuing to work on this project, which will include a number of further pieces on various aspects of Vivaldi's life and works. alvkintz{at}hotmail.com
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Abstract |
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In his 1948 monograph on the composer, pioneering Vivaldi scholar Marc Pincherle made a brief reference to an 18th-century report of a performance of Vivaldi's famous violin concerto, La Primavera, RV269, which, however, he never discussed or presented in detail. Since that time, this actually rather significant—and very charming—contemporary account has remained unnoticed in somewhat obscure works by Swiss authors. Pincherle's particular reference came from an 1897 book by Swiss musicologist Karl Nef, Die Collegia Musica in der deutschen reformierten Schweiz, a historical study of the institution of the Collegium Musicum in Switzerland. Nef cites a rare surviving programme from a 1755 spring concert given by the Collegium Musicum of Basel that opened with a ‘Symphonie’ by Vivaldi. He then quotes from an anonymous work appearing in the same year, Die Reise nach dem Konzerte. Durch einen Vetter des Eidsgenossen, which he believes was written by the Basel poet and scholar Johann Jacob Spreng (1699–1768). This work takes the form of a travelogue given by an unnamed Swiss parson and includes a very vivid and detailed account by the narrator of a concert he attended (presumably in Basel) that began with a performance of Vivaldi's Spring Concerto. He is greatly moved by the music, which he discusses with a fellow concert-goer who regrets that the ‘old music’ of the masters Vivaldi and Corelli is too infrequently played by contemporary musicians. It is entirely possible that this report is based on the same concert given by the Basel Collegium Musicum. An account of this type, written 14 years after Vivaldi's death, is primarily significant as yet another indication that interest in his music in various parts of Europe did not disappear with the composer's demise—or even before then.
Key Words: Antonio Vivaldi • Basel Collegium Musicum • Spring Concerto • La Primavera • Karl Nef • Marc Pincherle • Johann Jacob Spreng