Sailing to the Edge of Vivaldi

by: David White

When Max G started on his journey, the entirety of Vivaldi was probably one-tenth of what is known so far – no major choral works, the barest knowledge of the concerti and chamber music yet to be uncovered, he really was going toward the New World with no idea of whether he was ever going to get there.

Once upon a time there was a world without Vivaldi – and not simply because he hadn’t been born yet. One of the most remarkable musical stories of the 20th century was the discovery of the entire universe of music composed by Antonio Vivaldi. The story of his neglect and revival has been told – in the early issues of The Musical Heritage Review there are many articles about the dazzling finds that scholars were introducing to a music-loving public, at that very moment.

Now, in our century, after nearly 100 years has passed since the vault doors opened to the world, Vivaldi is musical wallpaper – renown, and played and overplayed enough so that opinions of whether “everything sounds alike” (a direct quote from a Vivaldi article in 1992), or whether Vivaldi is best served by being the composer of the most well-known classical music work on the planet.

This is not the space for this debate. We’re going to accept that the discovery of the music of Vivaldi might have been the most important or certainly in the discussion as the most important development in “classical” music that took place during the 20th century.

So, when Max Goberman began his remarkably ambitious musical journey to record all the works of Vivaldi in the late 1950, on his own subscription record label, it wasn’t entirely an entirely insane concept. At that time, scholarship around Vivaldi was just barely entering the mainstream – in fact, the essay included in this issue “Vivaldi: Worthy of Rescue” tackles this issue, as the “powers” in control of access to Vivaldi’s music had decreed that instrumental music would be first out, to define Vivaldi’s reputation, and the essay writer makes an impassioned plea for the release of more of Vivaldi’s sacred works, believing them to be the true musical core of Vivaldi’s genius.

So when we look now at a “complete works” of Vivaldi, there’s lots of asterisks and quotation marks (as I just used) because it’s BARELY complete – it’s complete as we know it so far. And when Max G started on his journey, the entirety of Vivaldi was probably one-tenth of what is known so far – no major choral works, the barest knowledge of the concerti and chamber music yet to be uncovered, he really was going toward the New World with no idea of whether he was ever going to get there.

His unfortunately and tragic death at age 51 might, without exaggeration, have kept certain works by Haydn and Vivaldi from the public ears for a decade or more. Goberman was embarking simultaneously upon recording the complete symphonies of Haydn and had a clear and insurmountable lead in the race (that was eventually won by The Musical Heritage Society’s series conducted by Ernst Marzendorfer). So when Goberman died of a heart attack on December 31, 1962, both projects stopped, and efforts to duplicate it were widely scattered. The first complete Haydn symphony cycle was completed in 1971 (Goberman had completed recordings of 52 symphonies of the 107, from 1960 to 1962). And the works of Vivaldi grew to nearly abstract levels – Goberman recorded 70 works for his own label. These recordings – which you are about to hear revived – were acquired by Musical Heritage Society in the 1960s after his death. And no one has been so maniacal to suggest they could record the complete works of Vivaldi since – it’s almost naïve and charming in retrospect.

These recordings – 2 hours’ worth, chosen from the 17 LPs released by MHS in the mid 1960s – are being issued to the public for the first time in 50 years. What you hear probably won’t suddenly change your mind about Vivaldi (good or bad), but you can’t help but get a sense of Lewis and Clark, or the Mercury 7 when you listen.

So MUCH has changed in the 60 years since these recordings were made – performance practices are different, these recordings tend toward a Romantic approach (Goberman’s day job - really his night job - was conducting Broadway shows, most famously “West Side Story”, for which he won a Grammy Award). He draws that from his musicians – the cream of Juilliard and a bit of Curtis as well made up Goberman’s band the “New York Sinfonietta”. Top notch soloists include flautist Julius Baker, violist Walter Trampler, and violinist Felix Galimir. And though the years – and the advent of “historically informed performance” have redefined our aural vocabulary of Vivaldi, these performances offer beautiful moments, and this collection does prove that 2 hours of Vivaldi is better than almost 2 hours of anything else you can pump through your speakers.

So much more could be written – but we are told the entire set will be reissued during the course of the next year!