Antonio Vivaldi Institute Archives - Page 7 of 8

Madrigali et ricercari a quattro voci

Andrea Gabrieli

Madrigali et ricercari […] a quattro voci

Edited by Alessandro Borin

“Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Andrea Gabrieli”, 14

Ricordi, Milan, 2012

The critical edition is based on the first and only edition of the Madrigali et ricercari […] a quattro voci published posthumously in Venice between 1589 and 1590. The collection includes fourteen madrigali and seven instrumental ricercari, heterogeneous materials distributed over an exceptionally large time span: the Preface provides brief historical and stylistic references to the compositions. The Critical Commentary offers an analytical description of the editio princeps (there are only four surviving complete copies, in the Offentliche Bibliothek, Basel, the Musiksammlung des Grafen von Schonborn-Wiesentheid, the British Library and the Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona) together with a synthetic description of some anthologies of music which in turn include also some of the compositions published in this edition (among them Gli amorosi concenti, a collection printed and dedicated, in 1586, to the imperial ambassador to Venice, Vito di Dorimbergo).

Demetrio

Libretto by Pietro Metastasio

Music by Johann Adolf Hasse

Facsimile edition of the score; edition of the libretto by Francesca Menchelli-Buttini; introductory essays by Reinhard Strohm and Francesca Menchelli-Buttini.

Drammaturgia musicale veneta, 17

Ricordi, Milan, 2014

The present volume is devoted to Demetrio, as produced at Venice, in 1732, with music by Johann Adolf Hasse to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. A facsimile reproduction of the manuscript of the score preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, is accompanied by a transcription of the libretto based on the example preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan, with the addition of a “Note on the text”, plus two introductory essays dealing with the opera and its historical-musical context. The first, by Reinhard Strohm, gives an account of the subject and of previous theatrical and literary treatments of the libretto, sheds light on Metastasio’s intentions by commenting on the most relevant dramatic situations, and analyses the score, evaluating the choices and duties of the composer. The second essay, by Francesca Menchelli-Buttini, examines the other masterpieces of the same time, Artaserse (1730) and Alessandro nell’Indie (1736), introducing a comparison with parallel compositional solutions found in Hasse’s operas of similar date.

Fabrizio Ammetto I concerti per due violini di Antonio Vivaldi

“Studi di musica veneta. Quaderni vivaldiani”, XVIII

Leo S. Olschki editore, Florence, 2013

In the whole of Europe the most important composer of concertos for two violins is indubitably Vivaldi (1678-1741), who produced almost thirty works of this type during almost the full length of his creative career. The book examines this particular side of Vivaldi’s activity, starting with an examination of the concerto in Rome, Bologna, and Venice at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The aspects investigated include the ‘conceptual’ origins of the double concerto for two violins in Vivaldi, the nature, distribution and interrelationship of their sources (particular attention being given to compositional revisions in the autograph manuscripts) and an analysis of the works themselves that takes in form, tonal structure, technical-instrumental character and performance practice. Th e concertos that have come down in particularly problematic non-autograph sources are discussed in detail. A reconstruction is off ered of the two works (RV 520 and RV 526) that have survived only in incomplete form, lacking the part of the fi rst soloist. Th e concertos for two violins composed in Germany by Telemann and J. S. Bach, the contemporaries of Vivaldi who paid greatest attention to the double concerto genre, are then described and analysed. The book ends with a complete list of modern editions of Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins and a select discography.

Micky White. Antonio Vivaldi. A life in documents

“Studi di musica veneta. Quaderni vivaldiani”, XVII

Leo S. Olschki editore, Florence, 2013

Styling the biography of a major composer as a chronological series of original documents accompanied by ample commentaries, an idea pioneered in O. E. Deutsch’s “Documentary Biography” of Handel (1955), has the advantage of revealing with clarity and accuracy the true foundations of our biographical knowledge of him. Micky White’s new account of Antonio Vivaldi’s life, which uses not only well-known documents but also ones newly discovered by her and other scholars, is the fi rst such study of Vivaldi to adopt this method. It reveals the composer more clearly than ever in his musical, familial, religious and social settings, giving us greater insight into his personality and daily life. Th e author, who has lived in Venice for many years and devoted herself assiduously to the task of uncovering new archival information, besides checking, collating and evaluating the already known data, has produced an irreplaceable vade mecum for Vivaldians that will be an essential resource for a long time. Th e volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing reproductions of the original documents.

Antonio Vivaldi L’estro armonico, Op. III

Critical edition by Michael Talbot

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi”

Ricordi, Milan, 2013

This most emblematic and historically significant of all Antonio Vivaldi’s published collections of instrumental music – the twelve concertos that truly “launched” him in the European musical word – are among the most difficult of his works to prepare for modern publication beacuse of the complex relationship between the lost manuscripts sent by the composer to Amsterdam and the engraved edition that came out in 1711. Close examination shows that in same cases the publisher, Estienne Roger, either misinterpreted Vivaldi’s text or chose to alter it, particularly through the addition of extra bass figures. This emerges most clearly from a comparison of early manuscript versions of two of the concertos (RV 567 and RV 578a) with their printed versions. For the first time the edition of the set includes, as appendices, both early versions. A detailed critical commentary is provided, and also many recommendations by the editor concerning interpretation and performance style. This is the first volume in a planned series of critical rditions comprising all the sonatas and concertos by Vivaldi published in his lifetime

Nerone – Nero. Libretto: Agostino Piovene – Johann Mattheson Musica: Giuseppe Maria Orlandini – Johann Mattheson

Facsimile of the score and edition of the librettos with introductory essays by Francesco Giuntini and Reinhard Strohm
«Drammaturgia musicale veneta», 14
Ricordi, Milan, 2013

Nerone, a “tragedia per musica” by Agostino Piovene, received its first staging in Venice in 1721 with music by Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, and won great success in the version performed two years later in Hamburg by Johann Mattheson, who retained the original arias, but traslated the recitatives into German and provided new musical settings for them, adding a few pieces of his own composition. In addition to a score corresponding to the Hamburg version (D-B, Mus. ms.16370), the volume contains editions of the Italian libretto of 1721 and the German one of 1723.

The opera is one of the most advanced manifestations of the reformist tendenciens of the early eighteenth century: this is a genuine tragedy, inspired by the Britannicus of Racine. A noteworthy example of the adaptive strategies pursued by Italian opera in Europan theatres, Nerone in addition evidences the fondness of the Hamburg stage for the theme of opposition to tyranny and, even more strongly, Mattheson’s critical and artistic abilities.

Antonio Vivaldi. Carae rosae, respirate. Mottetto per soprano, archi e basso continuo, RV 624

Motet for soprano, strings and basso continuo, RV 624

Critical edition by Michael Talbot

“Edizione critica delle Opere incomplete di Antonio Vivaldi”

S.P.E.S., Florence, 2009

This motet for soprano, strings and basso continuo is the only one by Vivaldi to be preserved outside Italy. It is included in two manuscript collections in London: a set of parts in the Royal College of Music and a score in the British Library. The structure is the conventional one of two arias enclosing a short recitative and followed by a brilliant Alleluia. The incompleteness of the sources (the second evidently copied from the first) is of a rather unusual kind. The existing score comprises a vocal part, an instrumental bass and a fi rst violin part. However, it is clear that there was originally at least one middle part (probably two, to match all the other surviving Vivaldi motets), since the bass part pauses frequently, andon these occasions the fi rst violin part continues as an “upper” voice, not as a bass of the harmony. In the reconstruction, inner parts for second violin and viola have been added by the editor. The task was not diffi cult, since many passages fi nd close parallels elsewhere in Vivaldi’s music.

Catalogo delle concordanze musicali vivaldiane

Catalogo delle concordanze musicali vivaldiane, or, inventory and synoptic view of all the loci communes in Vivaldi’s music: from whole movements down to small musical fragments, themes, phrases and ideas that circulate throughout his huge oeuvre and – sometimes – outside it, in composers from whom Vivaldi obtained them or who obtained them from Vivaldi. These hundreds of cross-references and concordances of varying degree build up a map of Vivaldi’s musical language, of his artistic evolution over time and of his creative and stylistic choices.

The great map of musical concordances in Vivaldi’s music opens one’s eyes to an extraordinary and complex laboratory of ideas, to a skilful and rigorous method of working that, once inventoried and organized, brings new perspectives to musicological research.

Indeed, the main aim of this study is to offer a new and useful instrument with which to confront problems of dating, chronology, attribution and identification, as well as to aid the study of Vivaldi’s creative periods and compositional methods. Cases of new musical attributions – described here in detail – have already been numerous, thanks to the adoption of this new kind of approach.

The volume is divided into two parts: an Introduction, which examines Vivaldi’s compositional process and establishes the epistemological bases of the system of musical concordances, and the Catalogue proper, in which, following the numbering of the Ryom catalogue, all the concordances so far noted in Vivaldi’s music are listed.

The author, who holds the responsibility for maintaining the Ryom catalogue, has updated his study to take account of the most recent additions to it.

Antonio Vivaldi. La fida ninfa, RV 714

Vivaldi set the libretto of La fida ninfa, a dramma per musica in three acts by Scipione Maffei, with a view to its use for the inauguration of the new theatre of the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona, which took place on 6 January 1732, during the carnival season, elaborate stage sets being provided by Francesco Bibbiena. This critical edition is based on the autograph manuscript of the score, preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria in Turin (Giordano 39 bis, ff. 154-298). The Introduction gives an analytical description of the main source employed and an overview of the most important collated secondary sources, which include a collection of arias prepared inVenice around 1732 by at least six different copyists working under Vivaldi’s supervision and today preserved in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek inDresden (Handschrift Mus. 2389-J-1). The critical edition of the score is complemented by a facsimile reproduction of the printed libretto of the opera, published atVerona in 1732 by Jacopo Vallarsi.

Antonio Vivaldi. Violin sonata, RV 810

The violin sonata RV 810 is among the most recent Vivaldi discoveries. Its history is strange: coming to light among the anonymous holdings of the Dresden library (SLUB), it was attributed to Vivaldi on account of its concordance with the recorder sonata RV 806, similarly anonymous, discovered not long before in Berlin and attributed to Vivaldi on the strength of several musical links to authentic works. The story of these two sources became more interesting and complex with the discovery of a plagiarized sonata published towards 1750 by the Venetian violinist Antonio Pizzolato, who made use of a large amount of material taken from Vivaldi’s sonata. The present, first edition of RV 810 relates the intricate story of these finds and restores to public view the text of a fresh and scintillating work composed by Vivaldi in the mid 1710s.