Istituto: Antonio Vivaldi Institute

Antonio Vivaldi

Serenata a 3, RV 690

Reduction for voice and piano

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi2

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

The Serenata a 3, RV 690, is the oldest and in certain respects the most enigmatic of Vivaldi’s known serenatas. e libretto transports to the allegorical plane the story of the cleric from Toulouse Jean de Tourreil, which unfolded against the background of the great doctrinal controversies that broke out in Italy following the spread of Jansenist ideas during the pontificate of Clement XI. Even if many questions about the origin of Vivaldi’s score still remain unanswered, it is likely that the work was commissioned and performed in Rome around 1715 at the behest of a patron close to the composer and directly involved in the a aire Tourreil. e present reduction for voice and piano, prepared by Antonio Frigé, is based on the critical edition of the score prepared by Alessandro Borin (publisher Ricordi, Milan, 2011).

Antonio Vivaldi

12 sonate per violino e basso, Opera II

Edited by Federico Maria Sardelli

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi”

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

Vivaldi’s second published collection is fundamental to an understanding of the leap he took, at the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century, from provincial obscurity to Europe-wide fame. This edition asks and answers the hard questions surrounding its exact date, its choice of dedicatee and its Venetian context. Through analysis of the two different printing techniques employed –movable type and engraving –and through comparison of the sources, it has proved possible to reconstruct the context in which the opus achieved publication and establish what its truly innovative aspects were; the edition sheds light on the reception of the work, listing the huge number of composers who derived or appropriated musical ideas and solutions from it. This second published collection by Vivaldi, for too long unjustly neglected by critics and performers, may be considered a manifesto for the new musical language invented by Vivaldi for chamber music.

Antonio Vivaldi

Concerto, RV 817

Edited by Federico Maria Sardelli

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi”

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

Among the many new works by Vivaldi discovered in recent years are not only previously completely unknown works, but also ones that had already been noticed but for a variety of reasons were set aside. This is the case with the violin concerto RV 817, which has come down to us via a copy lacking the name of its composer. A re-examination of it in the light of the system of “musical concordances” –the great schema of Vivaldi’s reuse of thematic material –has permitted its attribution to him without any further doubts and its recognition as one of the virtuosic concertos of his full maturity. Intended for his pupil and advocate Georg Pisendel, the concerto reflects a predilection for double stopping and the exploration of the ultra-high register common to the works written for him. With this twenty-second violin concerto in A major, another precious piece is added to the mosaic of the Vivaldi catalogue.

Antonio Vivaldi

Tito Manlio, RV 738

Reduction for voice and piano

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi”

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

Antonio Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio was performed at Mantua, in the winter of 1719, as the second opera of the carnival season presided over by the governor of the city on behalf of the Habsburgs, Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt. For this occasion, Vivaldi dusted off an old libretto by Matteo Noris centred on an episode in Roman history as related by the Paduan historian Titus Livius. Vivaldi’s setting is conceived as a sumptuous nuptial homage, since the opera was planned to form part of the celebrations organized for the occasion of the marriage of landgrave Philip to princess Eleonora Gonzaga of Guastalla, announced only a few weeks before the opening night. The extended essay introducing the critical edition reconstructs, with the inclusion of hitherto unpublished archival documents, the economic, ideological and theatrical context relating to Mantua. The methodological stance is based on the concept of “opera as a social phenomenon” proposed by the American literary scholar Jerome McGann, according to whom every artefact belongs to a complex system of production and consumption, which has the power to influence the moment both of creation and, more specifically, of reception. The present reduction for voice and piano, prepared by Antonio Frige, is based on the critical edition of the score prepared by Alessandro Borin.

Andrea Gabrieli

Il primo libro de madrigali a sei voci

Edited by Alessandro Borin

“Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Andrea Gabrieli”, 5

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

The present critical edition is based on the two editions of Il primo libro de madrigali a sei voci published in Venice in 1574 and 1587. The editio princeps, dedicated to the Bolognese Maecenas Giovanni Saraceni, includes eighteen madrigals, the first of which – in praise of the dedicatee – has been replaced in the reprint by two six-voices madrigals previously published in the Secondo libro di madrigali a cinque voci (1570). The Preface to the volume provides brief historical and stylistic notes on the nature of the relationship between Gabrieli and the Saraceni family, some information on the Venetian literary circles in which the lyrics set to music in this collection have been conceived and some basic observations on the models that may have influenced some of the musical choices of Andrea Gabrieli. The Critical Commentary provides a bibliographical description of the editio princeps (only two complete copies survive in the Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek der Stadt, Kassel and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich), a bibliographical description of the posthumous reprint (four complete copies) and a chronological list of the sources with concordances, which include spiritual contrafacta and diminuted versions of some compositions included in this collection (including the celebrate treatise Il vero modo di diminuir […] by Girolamo della Casa, whose exemplifications are printed in Appendix to this volume).

Andrea Gabrieli

Il primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci

Edited by Alessandro Borin and David Bryant

“Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Andrea Gabrieli”, 2

Ricordi, Milan, 2013

This critical edition is based on the three known 16th-century editions of Andrea Gabrieli’s Primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci. The first edition (1566), dedicated to the Venetian abbot Domenico Paruta, includes a total of seventeen madrigals. The second edition (1572) is identical in terms of both contents and layout. On the contrary, the third edition (1587) presents several differences: the dedication is eliminated, the opening madrigal is moved to an internal position, and a new madrigal is added. The present edition follows the original conception and layout as established by the editio princeps of 1566; the additional setting of 1587 is included at the end. The Critical Commentary provides bibliographical descriptions of the first edition (of which three incomplete copies are preserved in the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, the Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence and the library of the Accademia Filarmonica, Verona) and the two reprints, together with details of the two collections of works by various composers in which madrigals from the first Book were included (among them Il Desiderio, a madrigal Anthology of 1566, dedicated to the Venetian patrician Alessandro Contarini).