Vivaldi's Opus 9, La cetra, was dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. The following year, another serenata, La Sena festeggiante (RV 694), was written for and premiered at the French embassy as well, celebrating the birth of the French royal princesses, Henriette and Louise Élisabeth.
The serenata (cantata) Gloria e Imeneo (RV 687) was commissioned in 1725 by the French ambassador to Venice in celebration of the marriage of Louis XV.
They were published as the first four concertos in a collection of twelve, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Opus 8, published in Amsterdam by Michel-Charles Le Cène in 1725.Īt the height of his career, Vivaldi received commissions from European nobility and royalty. Each concerto is associated with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi, describing the scenes depicted in the music. They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, ice-skating children, and warming winter fires. The inspiration for the concertos was probably the countryside around Mantua. Though three of the concerti are wholly original, the first, "Spring", borrows motifs from a Sinfonia in the first act of Vivaldi's contemporaneous opera Il Giustino. During this period Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons, four violin concertos that give musical expression to the seasons of the year.
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