Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi

by Bella Brover-Lubovsky

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253351296
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	06/25/2008
Series:	Music and the Early Modern Imagination
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

Indiana UniversityJacobs School of Music - Massimo Ossi

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.

Editorial Reviews

"[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.March 2010"—Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Stanford University

"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

From the Publisher

[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.March 2010

Stanford University - Eleanor Selfridge-Field

"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

Massimo Ossi

"[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

— Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Stanford University

Notes