Cantata – Piango, gemo, sospiro e peno RV 675

Vivaldi wrote about 40 secular chamber cantatas
for solo voice and instruments, seemingly all composed in the composer’s spare
time. The fact that the genre of the vocal cantata was something reserved for
the aristocratic and court circles meant that Vivaldi, who was very much caught
up with his work at the Ospedala della
Pietà and at the theatre, had little interest in writing these works other
than for special occasions or as commissions. The manuscript of RV 675 can be
found at the library of the Florence Conservatory, and takes on the simple
structure of aria-recitative-aria, the outer movements making use of the
familiar ritornello form. The cantata opens with a strict pulsating four-bar
basso ostinato, immediately recognisable as a lamento by the passus
duriusculus or falling chromatic line spanning the interval of a fourth.
The solo statement from the voice, ‘I
cry, I groan, I sigh’  is repeated
four times in ritornello fashion, then four times again in the dominant key,
transcending the listener into a trance induced by the steady and unwavering
form. Comparing this method of writing with the strict and arguably
uninteresting structure presumes Piango
gemo to be an early work of Vivaldi’s, probably written sometime in the
late 17th century, when Vivaldi was experimenting with his first attempts at
composition. There are unlikely claims that Bach used Vivaldi’s model for the
basso ostinato and borrowed the text of this movement for his great chorus Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’ BWV 12, which later he reworked into the
‘Crucifixus’ of the B-minor mass.