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Notes 58.4 (2002) 924-926



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Music Review

L'estro armonico

Le quattro stagioni

Le quattro stagioni


Antonio Vivaldi. L'estro armonico, Op. 3, in Full Score: 12 Concertos for Violins and String Orchestra. Edited by Eleanor Selfridge-Field, with Edmund Correia Jr. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, c1999. [Introd., p. v-ix; score, 250 p.; crit. notes, p. 251-57. ISBN 0-486-40631-8. $14.95.]
Antonio Vivaldi. Le quattro stagioni = The Four Seasons. Edited by Christopher Hogwood. Kassel: Bärenreiter, c2000. [Introd. in Eng., Ger., p. iii-xii; facsims., p. xiii-xvi; score, 95 p.; crit. commentary, p. 96-100. ISMN M 006-50625-5; BA 6994. Duration, ca. 12, 11, 11, 12 min. C—29.50.]
Antonio Vivaldi. Le quattro stagioni = The Four Seasons. Edited by Christopher Hogwood. Piano reduction. Kassel: Bärenreiter, c2000. [Notes in Eng., Ger., 1 p.; the sonnets in Ital., Eng., Ger., 4 p.; score, 61 p. and 4 parts (vl. solo). ISMN M 006-50631-6; BA 6994a. Duration, ca. 12, 11, 11, 12 min. C—25.]

For all the popularity of his concertos, and of L'estro armonico, op. 3, and Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), op. 8, nos. 1-4 in particular, Antonio Vivaldi has been ill-served in terms of reliable editions. The modern scholar-performer remains dependent for a broad conspectus on the old Ricordi editions edited by Gian Francesco Malipiero for the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, versions that are often flawed but still widely used (and still available in miniature scores—op. 3 [pub. 1965] reprinted in two vols. in 1997 [PR 1231- 32] and The Four Seasons [pub. 1950] reprinted in 1983). The concerto has not been a priority among the more modern publications of the Istituto, although The Four Seasons has recently appeared in an authoritative critical edition by Michael Talbot and Paul Everett (Milan: Ricordi, 1996; pub. no. 137300). While whole tracts of Vivaldi's output remain inaccessible and largely unknown—numerous highly original and challenging bassoon and cello concertos, for example—these two new publications by Dover Publications and Bärenreiter of Vivaldi's most familiar works are nevertheless welcome in different ways. [End Page 924]

L'estro armonico is the more straightforward collection of concertos for an editor to face. Any edition must begin from the well-known Estienne Roger publication issued in Amsterdam at Vivaldi's initiative in 1711. This is a particularly clear and accurate publication, so much so that performers may prefer to go straight to facsimile parts issued by Performers' Facsimiles (New York, 1992; no. 103) or King's Music (Redcroft, Huntingdon, Cambs., UK, ca. 1990). But there is an important caveat. Roger's eight partbooks include four violin parts for every concerto, whether written for one, two, or four soloists. The distribution of the parts leaves little doubt that (in this form at least) the concertos were intended for performance by a single player to each part. Tutti and solo markings are merely guides for the players as to the texture as a whole, drawing attention to doubled parts, not an indication for additional ripieno orchestral players. Any orchestral performance, therefore, constitutes a translation, requiring a certain amount of arrangement and—in those concertos for one or two soloists—redistribution of the lines across orchestral first and second violins, with divisi if necessary. This is the solution offered in the old Ricordi edition (although the rearrangement is not clarified) and customarily followed in modern performances.

Eleanor Selfridge-Field's new edition for Dover sweeps away this interference, and presents essentially a transcription of the Roger parts. Yet it curiously maintains the pretense that orchestral performance is achievable with minimal intervention. The score is laid out with four violin staves, yet the original tutti/solo markings now do duty for indications of ripieno orchestral entries, with some small adjustments at the ends of phrases. But this simple emendation does not fully answer the need, as it results in some passages that leave the orchestral...

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