Antonio Vivaldi

Complete Sonatas for Cello and Basso Continuo

The nine sonatas for violoncello and basso continuo by Antonio Vivaldi are among the best-known cello works of the Baroque era. Thanks to their moderate technical demands, the pieces have a firm place in lessons as well as in private music education. But they are also a focal point of the cello repertoire for the professional early music scene. The new edition of the Wiener Urtext Edition does equal justice to all three target groups. It offers a reliable musical text which is no longer based on the unauthorized Paris first edition by Le Clerc & Boivin, but on a copy from Naples which Vivaldi himself reviewed, as well as two other manuscripts close to the composer from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the music library of the Counts of Schönborn in Wiesentheid. In addition to the solo part, the edition includes a piano score with suspended basso continuo, which should be very welcome as a basis for music-making for students and amateurs. For the professional continuo player, an unrealized basso continuo part is included, in which the figures of the Paris first edition have been integrated. Although they do not go back to Vivaldi himself, they are a testimony to contemporary basso continuo practice and can serve as a 'hand guide' for the performance of the bass part which Vivaldi left unfigured. Detailed information on performance practice is also provided by Gerhart Darmstadt's notes on interpretation based on historical sources.