Now that sounds quite a big undertaking. For a musician writing for a modern orchestra it certainly would be, as the style has changed and the orchestra has got a lot bigger. It would take days to write a modern score. In Vivaldi's day, things were rather different, as the composing style was considerably more formulaic and the actual score would have relatively little written down.
As you can see from the illustration taken from one of his actual scores for a concerto for two solo instruments and orchestra, he only needed to write down the parts for the soloists, the bass line, with a few figures perhaps to indicate the harmony required, and the upper string parts of the orchestra. I wondered, if he was indeed churning them out at the rate of two a week, how long it might take him to write one. I bet myself I could write one in that style in about four hours - i.e. a morning's work for him. Actually, although I was using a computer to do some of the donkey work, in some ways he had the advantage over me. I would have to write out the keyboard continuo part in full, not just represent it with a few figured bass annotations, and entering notes via the computer keyboard and mouse is a slower job than writing them in with a pen. On the other hand, it would be much harder for him to make alterations, whereas I could keep changing things ad infinitum. I didn't have to rule my own staves before I could begin, however, and I could copy and paste repeated stuff which he would have to have written out again. I'd decided to write an independent viola part, whereas he could, if he was feeling lazy, let it simply double the bass line. I reckoned it would be a fair enough test.
But the end result is not a bad little piece, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoy it... |
This piece is the result of a bet with myself. One that I actually lost.
I had been telling a friend about Vivaldi's concertos - he had asked about
some music I used as the backgrounds for a video Adam and I made about a
visit to Portmeirion some years back. It was actually some concerti from
his L'Estro Armonico, a job lot of fiddle concerti he published
sometime, probably when he was strapped for cash. I told him that Vivaldi
wrote a vast quantity of concerti, because he had a job as fiddle teacher
and conductor at Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for young girls which
turned them out as musicians. His contract, according to the mythology,
required him to write two concerti a week for them.
I decided to write a concerto for two oboes and orchestra. The oboe
sample on my midi system is pretty fair, whereas the solo violin one is
rather harsh - though the orchestral string sample is acceptable enough.
So I started writing, using a modified version of a well known Vivaldi
tune as my first subject in the first movement as a nod to the master. The
first movement went splendidly, and I finished it in less than an hour. My
plan went somewhat awry when I started on the slow movement. I got a much
better idea than the moment required and spent a long time working on it,
as it deserved more attention to give it the polish it required. In the
end I had spent four hours on perfecting it, so I had lost my bet with
myself. The last movement was completed in just over an hour though. If I
had not hit pay-dirt with the second movement idea, I have no doubt I
would have managed to write the whole thing in well under the four hour
limit. 