I’m very grateful to a comment on my blog, pointing out, which I did not know, how recent the interest and enthusiasm for Vivaldi is and that its origins lie in concerts promoted by Ezra Pound in Rapallo, together with his lover, Olga Rudge, an American violinist. I presume this fact is well known to musicologists, but, after many years as a Vivaldi enthusiast, I did not know that it was only in the 1920s that his manuscript library was acquired in two chunks by the National Library in Turin and only in the 1930s that it began to be performed as part of an Italian cultural revival, closely associated to fascism. I don’t know if this should affect my enjoyment of the Nisi Dominus. I hope not.
Here are a few thoughts on this in my recent post: http://robinsaikia.org/2021/01/02/ezra-pound-birdsong-and-vivaldi/
Thank you. It is indeed really interesting and I see you’ve written about Jan Morris too. Charles
As Vivaldi died in 1741, I think it’s ok to enjoy!
You knew that of course, didn’t mean to suggest otherwise!
Yes, I did, but it’s still interesting how one’s perception of Vivaldi’s music might be subtly adjusted by learning new historical facts: forgotten and then rediscovered, but in Fascist Italy. Charles