CELLO SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR, RV 47 (1725-6), transposed for double bass and piano
Antonio Vivaldi

CELLO SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR, RV 47 (1725-6), transposed for double bass and piano

Antonio Vivaldi
(b. Venice, March 4, 1678; d. Vienna, Austria, July 27/28, 1741)

Composed 1725-6; 11 minutes

Sketch of Antonio Vivaldi by Pier Leone Ghezzi, Rome 1723 The handwritten text reads as “The Red Priest, composer of music who made the opera at the Capranica of 1723.”

Vivaldi composed 30 of his substantial catalog of 500 concertos for the cello, with a more modest output of 10 cello sonatas. The concertos were for use at the Ospedale della Pietà, the Venetian institution for young orphaned (or abandoned) girls, while the sonatas were mainly private commissions. The first six cello sonatas were published in 1740, in Paris, unbeknownst to Vivaldi, half a continent away in Venice. The original manuscript from which the publication was made survives in Paris to this day and its penmanship has been tracked to ’Scribe 9’ who worked with Vivaldi in Venice between 1716 and 1726. The B-flat sonata is written after the Corelli model of ’church’ sonata, the sonata da chiesa, with a pair of alternating slow-fast movements. The slow movements are elegantly written and left to the performer to ornament according to taste. The quicker movements call for more nimble fingers on both fingerboard and bow.