The Cantata within Vivaldi's Oeuvre

The cantata stands a little apart from the other domains that Vivaldi cultivated. One symptom of this is the rarity with which the material of his cantatas – and, above all, of his continuo cantatas – recurs in his works belonging to other genres. Whereas a slow movement of a violin sonata may pop up as that of a concerto, or the theme of a concerto ritornello reappear in an operatic aria, such specific links involving themes in the fullest sense (as opposed to motives and figures) are hardly ever encountered between his cantatas and his other music. Since Vivaldi was in general such an inveterate self-borrower, we need to consider why.

Part of the reason lies in simple statistics. The great majority of Vivaldi's cantatas are for voice and continuo. Vivaldi began to compose them in quantity (during the Mantua years) at a point when continuo arias were beginning to disappear entirely from his (and other composer's) operas. The opportunity for exchange in bulk between cantata arias and operatic arias was therefore lost. In any case, Vivaldi had developed a sensitivity for the text–music relationship that prevented him from making such exchanges too freely. Most cantata aria texts differ from most operatic aria texts in style and content. The elegiac, pastorally tinged tone of a typical cantata aria corresponds to that of only a very small subtype of operatic aria.