Consolation in Difficult Times, or On Approaching the Ideal

The time is very tense now. A regional war is raging at full force, and a full-scale — if not global — war may begin at any moment. My younger son is in his fifth month; even before he was born, we were anxiously awaiting a Russian attack on Ukraine. We are still waiting... I have a sea of work. I committed to submit a textbook to a ministerial competition and my doctoral dissertation to the academic council. I try to work, but anxiety interferes. Here I will try to ease my mind a little. Here are different performances and transformations of a great musical text: Vivaldi’s concerto RV 565 and Bach’s transcription BWV 596. Sometimes it seems to me that everything necessary is already in this music, and what is absent is superfluous. Fortunately, YouTube now has a mass of video and audio recordings of real music. I browse these recordings, look for what I like, and try to identify optimal performances. Here I collect materials that help better understand one of my favorite concertos. So the listener need not leave this page, I upload downloaded video here. Links to source pages are provided. Unfortunately, as I understand, this page is overloaded: do not be offended if the player needs several seconds to start. So, the source text. Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto in D minor for two violins, cello, and strings. This is the penultimate, eleventh number from “L’estro Armonico,” an utterly extraordinary cycle of 12 concertos published over three centuries ago, in 1711. In opus logic: Op. 3, No. 11. In catalog numbering: RV 565. ... Where near the end of the middle section (in the audio recording of movement III — from timestamp 1:58) the main phrase is repeated several times, the pianist can change the reflected philosophy simply by changing intonation and emphasizing one note or another. And by how such passages are performed, I feel closer to the performer in the audio recording than to Gindin. It seems there are no grounds for hope. But by the end of the fourth movement a voice breaks through, making it clear that everything has meaning, and that this meaning is not subject to destruction. This is consolation... If you listened to a substantial part of what I posted on this page, I hope you understand why it seems to me that this final fragment contains good news. It clearly belonged to Vivaldi’s own design. That is why I posted this page.