Today, on the eve of Advent, we celebrate the event that started it all – the announcement to Mary that she would bear the Christ child. Mary’s response to the angels’ proclamation is enshrined for all time in the text of the Magnificat, a canticle of joy, humility and expectation perfect for the coming Advent season.
Composers throughout history have been drawn to this text because of its vivid expression and rapidly shifting moods, making it perfect for musical setting. Antonio Vivaldi composed both his Magnificat in G minor RV 610 (c. 1717) around the time he was promoted to the position of maestro de’ concerti of the Ospedale della Pietà, one of four prominent orphanages in Venice housing illegitimate daughters of Venetian noblemen. It also served as a music conservatory, training the most talented of its music charges.
The instrumentalists, chorus, and soloists – all women from the Ospedale – performed hidden behind screens, in galleries above the audience. In defiance of traditional gender expectations, even the tenor and bass parts were sung by women. In this context, Vivaldi set the Canticle of Mary, the humble handmaiden whose soul magnifies the Lord.
The Magnificat in his hands is less about humility and more about awe, a choice made immediately clear from the opening bars of the first movement. Majestic block chords emerge from silence and expand outwards into a magnificent arc of overlapping suspensions and harmonic shifts that are nothing short of breathtaking.
In “Et exultavit,” Vivaldi combines three separate verses of Mary’s rejoicing into one movement with three lyrical solos. They are joined by all the voices of the choir on the words “omnes generations,” as if all the generations were affirming Mary’s praise. Vivaldi sidesteps the structure of the poem, choosing instead to have each movement focus on a single emotional response.
The middle movements are full of fire, drama, and contrast, as Vivaldi overturns the oppositions of the Magnificat text. The vigorous writing of “Fecit potentiam,” “disperses” the proud in scattered entrances. In “Deposuit potentes,” the chorus and orchestra combine in unison phrases to throw down the powerful and rise up together in exaltation. The empty rests of “Esurientes” (representing the hungry) are filled to overflowing by the lines of the vocal duet. Vivaldi’s Magnificat comes to a close with a grand recapitulation of the opening that brings home the text of the concluding double fugue: “As it was, in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.”
-Justin Smith