Composed: ca. 1720s
Duration: 7 minutes

The bold, ringing sound of the trumpet has always been at the centre of great religious and military ceremonial occasions. In Vivaldi’s time, however, the instrument was very limited in the notes it could play. Like the bugle, it had no valves. In the lower part of its range, only the notes of the common chord could be produced; at higher pitches, more and more notes became available, but only very skillful players could control them.

When Vivaldi wrote his Concerto for Two Trumpets, the intended soloists were almost certainly pupils at the Ospidale della Pietà, a school for orphaned girls in Venice, where he was the music master. The result is a work in which the soloists are given passages almost entirely in the home key of C Major.

In the two fast movements, Vivaldi holds our interest by having the trumpets chase each other in imitative phrases. The string orchestra provides harmonic variety in the intervening passages, while allowing the trumpeters to rest their lips. The slow movement is a brief interlude of only six bars, again for strings alone.