World Premiere: Giovanni Sollima’s “The lost concerto No. 2”

‘For some time I had been looking for the manuscripts of two ‘mysterious’ Vivaldi cello concertos catalogued as RV 787 and RV 788, although only the viola part survives. I found them - again complicit in these and other finds, the 2020 lockdown! - in the library of the Conservatory in Venice.

Fascinating and intriguing manuscripts in every way, starting with the dedication to Teresa, a cello virtuoso among the girls of the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, and that they were bound together (in a folder with viola parts, there is also the name of the violist, but I don't remember it...) with other pieces, famous and not so famous, with violin or substitute soloist, for strings alone, and so on. It sounded like a sequence for a big monographic concerto, we would say a rock concerto today, at least judging by the kind of ‘dramaturgical’ order of the pieces.

The Concerto RV 787 in E minor had a rich and interesting viola part. I edited it in 2021 and recorded it with the Golden Pommel on the Al Bunduqyya disc released by Warner. I called it ‘The Lost Concerto No.1’.

The approach to the manuscript of the Concerto RV 788 in B flat major, on the other hand, is more recent, dating from August 2024, and I have called it ‘The Lost Concerto No.2’.

In this case, the viola part is sparser or more essential than in the other concerto, but I have left the text intact, including the rests, and invented everything else (I would not speak of reconstructions or historical forgeries), I have simply tried to ‘breathe’ or perceive something of this thin trace. In reality, the only thing that comes back is a kind of Vivaldian architecture, albeit with different techniques. Entering manuscripts is always an incredible experience, in this case it was something like travelling through time, but without any analepsis or chronological structure.’

Giovanni Sollima