Vivaldi 12 Sonatas

These works, often thought of in terms of being ‘immature’, are currently under recorded. This is a pity because although lacking in the depth of Vivaldi’s next opus, the masterwork ‘L’Estro armonico’, these sonatas are sophisticated and artful studies.

It is now generally accepted that Vivaldi wrote ten cello sonatas – one of them now lost. Six (RV 47, 41, 43, 45, 40 and 46) of the surviving nine were published posthumously as a set, in Paris, by Charles-Nicolas Le Clerc around 1740. The other three survive in manuscript collections: RV 42 (along with RV 46) is preserved in the library at Wiesentheid Castle at Unterfranken in Germany; RV 39 and 44 (along with RV 47) are to be found in a manuscript in the Naples Conservatoire.
Geminiani’s opus 5 consists of six cello sonatas, and was first published in Paris in 1746. The twenty years either side of 1740 saw the cello rise to a very fashionable position in French musical society, largely at the expense of the bass-viol – a change of fashion which stirred such strong emotions that in 1740 Hubert Le Blanc published his fierce Defense de la basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon et les pretensions du violencel. Music such as that by Vivaldi and Geminiani which is played here by Roel Dieltiens and his colleagues must have made a powerful counter-case for the cello.

Good recordings of Vivaldi’s first printed opus are hard to come by. The set lacks the distinctive imprint of what we understand and recognize as Vivaldian, yet the pieces have great charm if handled sensitively and imaginatively. These have long been virtuous features in Monica Huggett’s playing: her gently inflected approach to the music, shared by the other members of Sonnerie, is a constant pleasure, and is heard to great advantage in the many beguiling slow movements of which the Largo and Sarabanda of Op. 1 No. 4 immediately spring to mind.

Good recordings of Vivaldi’s first printed opus are hard to come by. The set lacks the distinctive imprint of what we understand and recognize as Vivaldian, yet the pieces have great charm if handled sensitively and imaginatively. These have long been virtuous features in Monica Huggett’s playing: her gently inflected approach to the music, shared by the other members of Sonnerie, is a constant pleasure, and is heard to great advantage in the many beguiling slow movements of which the Largo and Sarabanda of Op. 1 No. 4 immediately spring to mind.

Antonio Vivaldi had his own cello specialist for part of his tenure at the Ospedale della Pietà, and there were several other virtuoso cellists in his orbit. His six sonatas for cello and continuo, of an unknown date of composition, are surprisingly simple technically and may have been intended as teaching pieces at the Ospedale. Most Baroque cellists and viol players, as well as quite a few performers on the modern cello, have recorded them, but this set by Dutch-Swiss cellist Roel Dieltiens stands out as dramatic and adventurous.

Though several of Vivaldi’s most delightful concertos are written for the flute, he left relatively little chamber music for the instrument: the ‘Il Pastor Fido’ set which used to be attributed to him is now known to have been composed by Nicolas Chédeville. On this valuable new recording, Mario Folena and Roberto Loreggian offer what seems to be all that is left of Vivaldi’s output for the genre, informed by the latest scholarship and in delightful and lively period-instrument recordings. They couple it not with the previously recorded ‘Il Pastor Fido’ sonatas, but with a genuine rarity: an arrangement of ‘Spring’ from The Four Seasons made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the composer and philosopher who argued that, in politics as in music, Man should return to first principles.

Listening to the sonatas in this 1993 Harmonia Mundi recording after seeing the written scores, it is easier to understand the process of converting dots into music. Although the title page (in Vivaldi's showiest calligraphy) reads Suonate a Violino e Basso per il Cembalo (ie keyboard), this recording injects extra colour - Nigel North adding to the continuo, playing archlute, theorbo and guitar. His plucked strings are a welcome feature throughout, being especially prominent in the dramatic opening to Sonata number 7 in c. Elsewhere, Andrew Manze provides his own elaborations in the slow movements, for which the scores do not write out embellishments for the repeated sections.

Federico Guglielmo whittles down his ensemble L’Arte dell’Arco to just three or four players for his latest release of Vivaldi’s music. Unlike other Vivaldi performers, Guglielmo is keen to return to the transparency of the Prete Rosso’s music, stripping away the ornate embellishments that have encumbered recent recordings, allowing the fluid lines to speak for themselves. In these Violin and Trio Sonatas, Guglielmo and his fellow musicians once again establish themselves as some of the foremost interpreters of the Italian’s music. For the most part bright and jolly, these sonatas demand to be played with charm and joie de vivre, which L’Arte dell’Arco certainly supply in abundance.

Vivaldi’s sonatas for violin and continuo follow his volume of trio sonatas, which, like these, paid homage to the acknowledged master of the form, Arcangelo Corelli, but staked out new, personal territory. Michael Talbot’s notes trace the origins of these sonatas in duets and various changes in their editions’ title pages if not thoroughgoingly in the nature of their conception.