The task of taking apart Vivaldi’s Gloria, and putting it back together in a way that makes sense both harmonically and structurally 300 years after the original construction was not an easy one. The biggest hurdle was that so many of the musical motives are already charged with the harmonic language of the 18th century, a language very different from the one that composers use today. Thus, it ended up being a bit like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces had I to put back together largely using the musical equivalent of scissors and sticky tape.
 
The first movement uses fragments predominantly from that famous ‘Gloria, Gloria’ opening. Beginning with just a few notes, the motifs are gradually expanded over time, that most famous D octave leap that Vivaldi opens with as a kind of harmonic drone, a reference point that is revisited throughout the movement. The whole thing builds to a frantic climax.
 
The second takes Vivaldi’s playful ‘Domini Fili’ fugue and scatters its melody into bite-sized chunks thrown between the sections of the ensemble. Just as the melody bounces around the instruments, so too does the harmony, jolting in unexpected directions in an almost anti-fugal manner that offends the strictly academic rules of composition that Vivaldi would have used to compose.    
 
The third movement is underpinned harmonically by a fleeting but particularly juicy sequence in Vivaldi’s piece: the ‘Gratias Agimus Tibi’. This is slowed down so as to be unrecognisable, and treated in a gradually rising sequence towards a climactic finale of cascading oboes.
 
The melody throughout the piece is made up of sneaky references to every one of Vivaldi’s movements. Listen out if you know them- there’s something form every movement hidden somewhere.

Gloria in Fragments

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Overture (instrumental)

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Overture (instrumental)

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