What do people think of Vivaldi?
 

I'm starting to listen to a lot of him now and I really like his stuff. I'm still new to classical music, but his pieces are amazing.

definately man, It takes a lot to compose such balanced pieces and his harmonies are excellent :)

Vivaldi's music was what made me, at the age of five, beg to be allowed to take violin lessons. Now that I've been playing for eleven years though, most of his music is way too repititious for me to enjoy. This judgement though, I think, is mostly based on my experiences in playing it myself (playing repititious music gets very very boring)... So my past self approves, and my present self is sick of him.

I like Vivaldi. My Parents onece took me along to see some muscicians play his music in Venice. I was a bit sceptical at first, but it ended up being amazing.

Wah! In Venice, even! That's amazing. Lucky lucky lucky. [I don't think I'd mind the repititiousness if it were live and in Venice...]

I like very much. Very good. still isnt as good as the good ole mozart.

He's cool. Gotta love those "Four Seasons." :clap:

His music is so cliche, it's delicious. Fricken love vivaldi.

Ah Vivaldi. A favourite of mine.

I think Vivaldi sucks ass. Boring as hell to play and boring to listen to. Its like listening to Mozart if you removed 80% of the melody and 95% of the accompaniment and then gave it to a small child to arrange and perform.

Vivaldi
 

Vivaldi was definately one of the greats. His Four Seasons is way ahead of it's time and an encyclopedia of Gypsy Violin Stylings.
I'll go along with the idea that not everything he wrote was as great but the man wrote over 500 concertos-give him a break!

i loved the 4 seasons, especially, the part in (ithink it was either spirng or summer) labled storm

I could not agree more. When playing/or listening I find some of his passages quite moving, but a good 90% of the time I find my self bored to death playing constant eighth or quarter notes that get a step higher with each set. It's mind numbing at points.

Vivaldi made the most amazing music ever.

I love his oboe sonatas, string works (like the Four Seasons) and just everything else in general. I can't get enough of Vivaldi. XD

I however have to say that I don't care for his Bassoon concerti, they're pretty annoying if you ask me... There's only one I really even like.

Vivaldi isn't that great. Such a boring composer.

...I Love Vivaldi's Four Seasons...and these videos are amazing...

Spring


Summer


Autumn


Winter

Hmmm, I've always thought vivaldi is a bit simple and overrated.
It somehow annoys me.

There were definitely way better composers active during the Baroque period than Vivaldi. To name a few:

• Claudio Monteverdi (very early Baroque, I think he died before Vivaldi was born)
• Jean-Baptiste Lully
• Arcangelo Corelli
• Henry Purcell
• Domenico Scarlatti
• Dietrich Buxtehude
• Giovanni Batista Pergolesi

And of course Bach, Handel, and Telemann. Compared to all these composers, I think Vivaldi was playing it safe in terms of composition style. His music is not extremely radical for the period, and the arrangements are quite simple, compared to Bach's arrangements, for example. Don't get me wrong, I love Vivaldi's music, but I also think it is a little overrated. A lot of people tend to define Baroque music by citing Vivaldi, and in my opinion, that's not really apt. Sure, you can't talk about 17th century music without mentioning him in the slightest, but his music is certainly not definitive of the period.

Aside from all that, when people talk about Vivaldi's compositions, they tend to mention only the Four Seasons concertos and overlook his other work. I guess that's just how things were meant to be :). As a flutist, I think his flute concertos are absolutely gorgeous. My favourite one to listen to and play is the Flute Concerto in D Major (RV 248):

Vivaldi also known as Antonio Vivaldi is the Italian composer. He was born in Venice on March 4th, 1678. He was famous for the baroque instrumental concerto. He wrote many popular concerto. He died on July 28th, 1741 because of asthmatic bronchitis.

Rrright

@ Burning down; I think I'm going to crash my car into something the next time I Have to hear the four seasons again. They are so overplayed everywhere.

:)<<<<<<<<<<<<forgot that

What, now people are going to tell me to use more smileys? :D

I once saw a concert, where they mixed up Vivaldis Four Seasons with Charles Ives' Four Holidays Suite. Which is extremely modern, weird and cacophoneus. So you would have a piece of gorgues baroque music. And then noise. Beauty. Noise. Beauty. Noise.

I thing Vivaldi tends to be a bit safe and boring, but in this context, it was amazing. Great concert.

I love the Vivaldi Gloria. That's easily one of my favorite pieces of music.

Hi
I think it's good..

thanks.

Vivaldi "four seasons" is one of my favourite.

I love some of the pieces he did for the bassoon. An underused instrument for many composers.

This guy is very good!!

I completely 100% agree with this assessment. I would like to demonstrate this, and while I agree with what BD posted about the over-played Four Seasons, I will nonetheless use it as an example of why I feel that JS Bach is so vastly superior.


Consider the most famous of the 4 movements, "Spring". In particular, pay close attention to the bass register:




It's just the E. Just the basic key note. All of the melodic features of the piece are in the upper register, the violins. Now juxtapose that to "Die Kunst Der Fuge"

I'm always smiling when I listen to Vivaldi. He's an exciting composer, lots of fun listening to him.

really love him

Who's the great one?

Vivaldi has always been one of my favourites. The Four Seasons violin concertos are great to listen to, but very hard to play and that definitely offers a different perspective on them. Those pieces are really the pinnacle of his work.

I view Vivaldi the same as I do Mozart; 90% of it is crap and it is the only stuff you can find because it is popular ["Four Seasons" is the absolute most trite and wanky garbage he ever composed much like the most popular Mozart pieces] because at the time, the trite, kitschy stuff is what sold, so they made tons of it so they could afford to live and the actual good compositions with genuine feeling flew under the radar and are difficult as hell to come across. Like trying to find anything by Pacheball that is NOT "Cannon in D".

I find nothing wrong with complexity, but it is only the wanky complexity tthat is vacuous and simply a masturbatory and display of technical skill that people are impressed by.

Such as the difference between Jason Becker and Yngwie Malmsteen. Yes, Malmsteen is technically magnificent at playing, but it actually is nothing more than ornate wankery from a purely musical expression standpoint over a generic pentatonic rhythm and people eat it up.

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Do you listen to much classical at all or are you just making this opinion based on the popular stuff you've heard a million times?

Actually I do listen to a lot of classical.

Should I need any more proof that my opinion is not simply of one that any might illogically consider to be unworthy of having one, I also have studied music theory and music history extensively to include university courses, as well as play ajd compose classical music, which many might think would make one more qualified to make such an assertion as what I did, but in actuality doesn't mean anything.

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Have you played any of it, like for lessons or performances, if you play an instrument? Playing this music always offers a different perspective.

I hold a different opinion, so I'm trying to understand yours.

Technical ability is not good or bad, but technical ability or skill without genuine expression is pointless masturbation.

That is my position. The most technically difficult piece, in lacking expression, cannot even hold a candle to the most simplistic composition that actually has genuine emotion and expression.

I wrote a poem about that idea after listening to a bunch of ego-masturbation in an existentialism course:
"The World is Sunshine and Roses"
When everyone is so dry and vapid, a shot glass of water spilled haphazardly on the driest desert appears as deep as the graceful ocean. Some say I should get out more, but that only makes it worse. At least when you&rsquo;re not surrounded by manure, you can imagine the roses haven&rsquo;t wilted and withered; if you get out in the fields though, walking through only stirs up that smell of death in the grey vastness of empty stems and the **** from which they failed to gain fertility.

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I get that, I've been playing flute for quite a number of years. Technical ability and virtuosity is expected of every flautist, along with being able to express it. Before I started working on Chaminade's "Concertino", I pretty much believed that virtuosity, both on the parts of the composer and the instrumentalist, was for the birds, and only worked at it when forced to do so (i.e. with etudes and caprices for my lessons). But it really isn't and I got a wake up call with that piece, lol.

It's definitely important not only for the composer to be able to put texture and expression at the forefront of a piece, but also for the performer to be able to convey that to the audience.

But you didn't answer my question yet! I'm just wondering, that's all.

Yes I play several instruments and never played any of "Four Seasons". I don't have to play it to hear that it lacks any genuine expression of feeling.

I play: guitar, bass, violin, viola, cello, double bass, harmonica, harp (to include full 47-string concert pedal harp) and various percussion instruments (timpani, djembe, various single-drum instruments, melodic toms).

Either way... nobody needs to be able to play or even know music history or theory to hold my position on the piece, so whether or not I do play, compose or have studied any of it academically should be entirely irrelevant.

I can appreciate skill, but I can't bear to listen to technical music that lacks expression and you don't need to play or study to hear that there is none beyond kitschy, empty fluff.