FULL ABRAMO IN EGITTO (Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani) Innsbruck 2024 Carlotta Colombo, Riccardo Pisani, Elena di Marino

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Abramo in Egitto  
• Composer: Viviani Giovanni Buonaventura  
• Libretto:
• Venue & Opera Company: Hofkirche Innsbruck, Austria  
• Recorded: October 25, 2024
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Carlotta Colombo, Riccardo Pisani, Elena di Marino, Davide Benetti, Andrea Gavagnin
• Conductor: Marian Polin  
• Orchestra: Ensemble der Innsbrucker Hofmusik  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Südtirol in concert  
• Date Published: 2026  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, itsubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  From 1672 to 1676, Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, a musician from Florence in Tuscany, directed the “Imperial Court Music in Innsbruck,” established
  by Emperor Leopold I after the extinction of the Tyrolean Habsburg line . In the following years, Viviani achieved success in Italy as an opera and oratorio composer. His oratorio “Abramo in Egitto,” performed in Modena in 1692 and preserved in Naples, is a true discovery, a masterpiece that will be heard for the first time in recent times in our concert . Viviani’s works, with their intricate details and virtuosity, clearly point towards the High Baroque. “Abramo in Egitto” dates from Viviani’s mature period and testifies to the composer’s rich experience in the field of Baroque opera. Viviani was a highly innovative composer: in the realm of instrumental music, he was one of the first to promote the modern genre of the trio sonata; he performed with Corelli and significantly influenced this master of High Baroque instrumental art.   Quote from MARIAN POLIN

  Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani (15 July 1638 Florence –about 1693 Pistoia) was an Italian composer and violinist. He worked in the court at Innsbruck as a violinist at least between 1656 and 1660. Between 1672 and 1676 he was director of the court music at Innsbruck, which, after the extinction of the Tyrolean Habsburgs, had come under the control of the emperor. Although in publications of 1678 Viviani still described himself as holding this position, it seems more likely that he was in fact in Venice working on his arrangement of Francesco Cavalli’s Scipione affricano and his own opera Astiage, which were both performed in Venice that year. Also that year, Viviani directed an oratorio at the Oratorio di San Marcello in Rome with Arcangelo Corelli and Bernardo Pasquini. He was probably elevated to the nobility in the same year, since he subsequently designated himself ‘Nobile del Sacro Romano Imperio’. Between 1678 and 1679 and 1681 and 1682 he was in Naples as director of a troupe of opera singers, and while he was there he performed some of his own operas and oratorios. In 1686 he was maestro di cappella to the Prince of Bisignano. From January 1687 to December 1692 he was maestro di cappella of Pistoia Cathedral.

  As a composer Viviani is known mostly for his operas and solo cantatas which follow the style of Antonio Cesti. It is speculated that Viviani studied with Cesti during his Innsbruck years which accounts for the similarities in style between the two composers; in any case he certainly knew Cesti’s work. His instrumental works are predominantly in the Italian style, though south German and Austrian influences are also recognizable. Of particular interest are the instrumental recitatives of the Sinfonia cantabile in his op. 4, which is written in imitation of a solo cantata; there are also two sonatas in op. 4 for trumpet and continuo. The Solfeggiamenti, textless vocal pieces intended for teaching purposes, are unusual examples of this genre because of the number of their movements and their exceptional length. His other compositions include two sonatas for trumpet and organ, two sonatas for solo trumpet, sonatas for violin and continuo, and several Capriccios.

  Quoted from Wikipedia

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