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Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")
Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741). Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme").
A hitherto undocumented and previously unknown autograph signature and associated musical manuscript fragment of the important Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music whose influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving origin to many imitators and admirers. He pioneered many developments in orchestration, violin technique and programmatic music and consolidated the emerging concerto form into a widely accepted and followed idiom.  Autograph signature "Del Vivaldi" penned to a slip of laid paper tipped at left and right edges to the upper left corner verso of a sheet of fragmentary scribal manuscript music, including 17 measures over 3 systems of 3 or 2 staves [for contralto voice, strings and bass] from the aria "Leon feroce ch' avvinto freme." MS on laid paper, probably Venetian, no watermark visible. No place or date [probably Manua or Venice, c.1725].  The manuscript sheet trimmed vertically down along the left and horizontally along the lower edge, thus beginning in bar 5 and lacking likewise the first four measures of the second and third systems, the last of which lacks the bass line. 3.5 x 1.6 inches (9.5 x 3.4 cm); 6.75 x 5.8 inches (17.2 x 15 cm). Signed sheet with evidence of water-staining and slight fading; manuscript with scattered original ink stains, else fine. 

The manuscript almost certainly belongs to the type of "supervised copies" prepared for the composer and generally authorized by him with the inscription found here "Del Vivaldi," though the present signature is on a different paper type and evidently must have been sourced from a separate preliminary sheet. For other examples of this characteristic procedure see the Ottoboni-Jennens manuscripts of the Chamber Concerto "La pastorella", RV 95, and the Violin Concerto, RV 286, now in the Manchester Public Library MS 580 Ct 51. The music copyist could conceivably have been either a relative or pupil of the composer, since his hand shows several similarities with the composer's own: for example the large open eighth-note flags (similar to Autograph score of the Concerto in C major for bassoon, strings and basso continuo. National University Library of Turin, ms. Foà 32, c. 154r). For further examples of Vivaldi's own hand see TNG, xx, p. 37, MGG, xiii, column 1859, Alan Kendall, Vivaldi, London, 1978, p. 103, and Michael Talbot, Vivaldi, London, 1979, p. 100.

The present Vivaldi aria was previously unrecorded in this form but for a related manuscript, apparently in the same scribal hand, sold at Sotheby's in 1990 and likewise signed "Del Vivaldi." Our manuscript includes no vocal text accompanying the second line, as seen there, but is otherwise more or less identical. The autograph manuscript from which these both were copied is unknown, but our manuscript fragment is likewise from an earlier and fuller version of an aria that Vivaldi subsequently shortened for his Farnace (Venice, 1727), for which a manuscript can be found in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Turin: for example, we can see here three bars at the beginning (bars 5-7), that were later cut in the only version previously known to survive. Vivaldi may have originally composed this aria, in the present form, for use in a pasticcio called Orlando furioso, at Mantua in 1725: the libretto for that production contains the text found in the Sotheby's copy, and we know that the composer was at Mantua during this period. The autograph inscription on that related manuscript would accord with a commissioned contribution to a pasticcio of this type. 

Autograph material by Vivaldi is of the utmost rarity. We are aware of only one two other scribal manuscripts with an autograph inscription offered for sale (Sotheby's, 1990 and 1992) in the last 100 years. Letters by Vivaldi are very rare: only about twenty are known to exist and we trace only one having appeared on the market since 1929.  We are grateful to Eleanor Selfridge-Field (Studi Vivaldiani) for her generous assistance with our research on this item.

The final form of the aria may be heard here: https://open.spotify.com/track/1CrcLif35kZl32XNYTHTPj?si=ec9ebd29babb4b40

Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741) Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme")

Schubertiade Music and Arts
SKU: 23505
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Vivaldi, Antonio. (1678–1741). Autograph Signature and Musical Manuscript Fragment ("Leon feroce che avvinto freme").
A hitherto undocumented and previously unknown autograph signature and associated musical manuscript fragment of the important Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music whose influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving origin to many imitators and admirers. He pioneered many developments in orchestration, violin technique and programmatic music and consolidated the emerging concerto form into a widely accepted and followed idiom.  Autograph signature "Del Vivaldi" penned to a slip of laid paper tipped at left and right edges to the upper left corner verso of a sheet of fragmentary scribal manuscript music, including 17 measures over 3 systems of 3 or 2 staves [for contralto voice, strings and bass] from the aria "Leon feroce ch' avvinto freme." MS on laid paper, probably Venetian, no watermark visible. No place or date [probably Manua or Venice, c.1725].  The manuscript sheet trimmed vertically down along the left and horizontally along the lower edge, thus beginning in bar 5 and lacking likewise the first four measures of the second and third systems, the last of which lacks the bass line. 3.5 x 1.6 inches (9.5 x 3.4 cm); 6.75 x 5.8 inches (17.2 x 15 cm). Signed sheet with evidence of water-staining and slight fading; manuscript with scattered original ink stains, else fine. 

The manuscript almost certainly belongs to the type of "supervised copies" prepared for the composer and generally authorized by him with the inscription found here "Del Vivaldi," though the present signature is on a different paper type and evidently must have been sourced from a separate preliminary sheet. For other examples of this characteristic procedure see the Ottoboni-Jennens manuscripts of the Chamber Concerto "La pastorella", RV 95, and the Violin Concerto, RV 286, now in the Manchester Public Library MS 580 Ct 51. The music copyist could conceivably have been either a relative or pupil of the composer, since his hand shows several similarities with the composer's own: for example the large open eighth-note flags (similar to Autograph score of the Concerto in C major for bassoon, strings and basso continuo. National University Library of Turin, ms. Foà 32, c. 154r). For further examples of Vivaldi's own hand see TNG, xx, p. 37, MGG, xiii, column 1859, Alan Kendall, Vivaldi, London, 1978, p. 103, and Michael Talbot, Vivaldi, London, 1979, p. 100.

The present Vivaldi aria was previously unrecorded in this form but for a related manuscript, apparently in the same scribal hand, sold at Sotheby's in 1990 and likewise signed "Del Vivaldi." Our manuscript includes no vocal text accompanying the second line, as seen there, but is otherwise more or less identical. The autograph manuscript from which these both were copied is unknown, but our manuscript fragment is likewise from an earlier and fuller version of an aria that Vivaldi subsequently shortened for his Farnace (Venice, 1727), for which a manuscript can be found in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Turin: for example, we can see here three bars at the beginning (bars 5-7), that were later cut in the only version previously known to survive. Vivaldi may have originally composed this aria, in the present form, for use in a pasticcio called Orlando furioso, at Mantua in 1725: the libretto for that production contains the text found in the Sotheby's copy, and we know that the composer was at Mantua during this period. The autograph inscription on that related manuscript would accord with a commissioned contribution to a pasticcio of this type. 

Autograph material by Vivaldi is of the utmost rarity. We are aware of only one two other scribal manuscripts with an autograph inscription offered for sale (Sotheby's, 1990 and 1992) in the last 100 years. Letters by Vivaldi are very rare: only about twenty are known to exist and we trace only one having appeared on the market since 1929.  We are grateful to Eleanor Selfridge-Field (Studi Vivaldiani) for her generous assistance with our research on this item.

The final form of the aria may be heard here: https://open.spotify.com/track/1CrcLif35kZl32XNYTHTPj?si=ec9ebd29babb4b40

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