Guglielmo Vivaldi

Vivaldi wrote almost no concertos for keyboard instruments, as Alessandro Borin tells us in his fine notes to this recording. There are just the six here, all with violin, and one more for harpsichord. Two of these also add oboe and optional chalumeau (RV 779) or cello (RV 554). The first thing to note about this recording is that it has some of Vivaldi’s most spirited and inventive music, ebulliently played.

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.

There is a story about Arnold Schoenberg that bears retelling now. He was in the midst of teaching a class at UCLA when a colleague burst in excitedly proclaiming "Arnold! I am just hearing Verklärte Nacht mit HORNS!" Amid much startled posturing the two rushed out to destinations unknown, leaving the class unacknowledged. But all the various arrangements of Schoenberg’s work (I’ve never heard it with horns, but the string orchestra version with timpani is quite a good one) don’t begin to compare with the numerous outrages wreaked upon this helpless Vivaldi composition.

Antonio Vivaldi was one of the most successful composers of the Baroque era, best known for his iconic set concertos for violin, The Four Seasons. L’Estro Armonico Op.3 is among the most important printed editions of Vivaldi’s concertos; the works immediately met with great acclaim after their publication in 1711, giving way to over 30 reprints in the subsequent 32 years.

After the enormous success of Vivaldi’s earlier collections La Stravaganza and L’Estro Armonico, his publisher Estienne Roger was eager to capitalise on the composer’s soaring popularity. With that in mind, Op.7 was published in 1720 containing 12 new concertos, ten for solo violin and two for solo oboe. However, it seems unlikely Vivaldi either authorised or approved of this publication, and recent research has even discovered that the authenticity of the concertos is doubtful, with at least the two oboe concertos certainly not by Vivaldi. The concertos may not bear the traditional Vivaldian hallmarks, with movements simplified or moved around, but they are still a worthy tribute to the composer, whether penned by the ‘Prete Rosso’ himself or not.

Antonio Vivaldi’s fame as an opera composer is due in now small part to his incredible industry. He composed around 50 operas, and of these around 16 have survived complete – several substantial fragments of others have also survived. It is for his instrumental music that he remains one of the major baroque composers – on a par with Handel and J.S. Bach, however, in the world of opera at the time, only one other composer rivalled Vivaldi in the use of orchestral colour and the way in which the human voice was blended with the accompaniment. The writing for voice generally is on a very high level. The rival was of course Handel, and Vivaldi also was a considerable impressario as was his German/British colleague.