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.