Sonata per violino e basso continuo RV 829

In a miscellaneous manuscript in the Este Music Collection belonging to the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, a new sonata for violin and basso continuo by Antonio Vivaldi has recently been identified. Although it has until now been attributed by default to the Bolognese Giuseppe Aldrovandini, by virtue of a heading written (but subsequently rubbed out) by the copyist of the manuscript on one of the pages of the violin part, this sonata has been recognized as an authentic composition by the Red Priest.

This work – which can be placed chronologically no later than the middle of the 1710s – represents the most clear-cut example in Vivaldi’s music of a “Sonate auf Concertenart”: more specifically, a kind of solo sonata for violin that the Red Priest could perform in order to show off his prowess on that instrument, as signalled by the presence of many passages featuring double stopping or the use of the ultra-high register.