Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi

Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi incorporates an analytical study of Vivaldi's style into a more general exploration of harmonic and tonal organization in the music of the late Italian Baroque. The harmonic and tonal language of Vivaldi and his contemporaries, full of curious links between traditional modal thinking and what would later be considered common-practice major-minor tonality, directly reflects the historical circumstances of the shifting attitude toward the conceptualization of tonal space so crucial to Western art music. Vivaldi is examined in a completely new context, allowing both his prosaic and idiosyncratic sides to emerge clearly. This book contributes to a better understanding of Vivaldi's individual style, while illuminating wider processes of stylistic development and the diffusion of artistic ideas in the 18th century.

"This will be a significant contribution to Vivaldi studies and 17th- and 18th-century harmonic and compositional theory.... It opens a new and necessary chapter in the scholarship on Vivaldi." --Massimo Ossi, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Indiana University Press

"[The] Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi has many strengths. It is rigorous, systematic, comprehensive, and original.... Brover-Lubovsky's study is based on the

examination of almost all of Vivaldi's available works, currently numbered at 808. This

includes substantial quantities of vocal music, some of it still unedited. In contrast to a widely held view that all of Vivaldi's music is written to one formula, she finds endless variety and nuance in his procedures." --Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Stanford University, Notes, March 2010 Indiana University Press

Analyzes Antonio Vivaldi's tonal and harmonic language

Bella Brover-Lubovsky is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theory and Composition, Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, and a lecturer and reseach fellow in the Department of Musicology, Hebrew University.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Editorial Conventions and Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1. Estro armonico

1. Vivaldi's "Harmony" and the Paradox of Historical Recognition

2. Theory of Tonal Organization in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Part 2. Key and Mode

3. Tonality and Key Characteristics

4. Modal Implications in Tonal Organization

5. The Interaction of Major and Minor Modes

6. Functioning of Tonality in Large-Scale Composition

Part 3. Harmony and Syntax

7. Lament Bass

8. Sequence

9. Pedal Point

10. Cadence

Part 4. Tonal Structure

11. General Premises

12. Functioning of Harmonic Degrees in Tonal Structure

13. Tonal Structure and the Choice of Tonality

14. Tonal Structure in Cyclic Compositions

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index