Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero

“When was this piece written?!” When I first began listening to Vivaldiana, I had to check our list of journal options again to make sure I had chosen from the right unit, because the work has none of the Romantic Era sounds I expected. Instead, the work’s repetitive melodic motives, harmonic movement, instrumentation, etc. sounded purely Baroque.
A little bit of research into Malipiero told me that I shouldn’t be so surprised to find Baroque music bearing his name, since he is known to have been an early musicologist. Malipiero specialized in Italian Baroque composers such as Monteverdi and Vivaldi. In fact, at the time he was preparing this piece, Malipiero was editing and publishing a compilation of Vivaldi’s music (Grove Music Online listed this piece as an arrangement, but I have been unable to verify its unoriginality, nor identify any Vivaldi concerti that match the music). The Vivaldi-esque sounds I hear are no amateur period imitation: they are the work of a Baroque Era expert and a Vivaldi expert.
Vivaldiana is a three-movement orchestral work. The first, “Adagio-Allegro,” moves from a slow to a fast tempo, the slow tempo lasting less than a quarter of the movement. The second, “Andante piu lento un poco,” is relatively slow throughout. The third, “Allegro molto,” is faster than the first movement throughout its entirety. Several distinctive stylistic elements in Malipiero’s work gave it its baroque sound. Harmonic movement is very simple, as in other baroque works, and is filled out by using arpeggiated chords. The melody is driven by repeating motives and shared between different voices, and the repetitive style is very baroque, without the developmental elements that became popular in romantic writing. Malipiero did not give rhythm as much importance as many Romantic Era composers had given it. Unlike the large form works of many of his Classical Era and Romantic Era predecessors, Malipiero’s work is lightly orchestrated, and deals primarily with woodwinds and strings. However, unlike Vivaldi’s, winds in Malipiero’s orchestra play more than a soloist role, often creating part of the texture. Also, Vivaldiana lacks the basso continuo that was characteristic of Vivaldi’s compositions. Overall, however, Malipiero’s work has much of the sound of Vivaldi’s work.
I found Vivaldiana to be both a convincing and an enjoyable Baroque style work. Malipiero seems to master baroque style so well that I can only come to the conclusion that when he diverged from it, as in his orchestration, he did so purposefully. I think those who enjoy baroque music would equally enjoy this twentieth-century work, even with its few stylistic differences.
I stated before that I had been unable to verify whether this work was originally Malipiero’s or an arrangement from Vivaldi’s own work. In either case it is commendable as an enjoyable work with a baroque sound, however, it would detract from my high estimation of Malipiero’s writing abilities if most of the work was originally Vivaldi’s. Perhaps the issue of authorship is part of the reason that this work is excluded from the canon. I think I know of another, more important, reason for its exclusion however. While this work gives insight into early musicology and (perhaps) the ability of twentieth-century composers to imitate baroque sounds, it is not representative of most of the writing happening during that time period.