Hyperion Records

The Concerto RV781, formerly designated RV563 in Peter Ryom’s general catalogue of Vivaldi’s works, is technically only a ‘double’ concerto, since the third solo instrument, a violin, appears separately, and only in the central slow movement. It survives only in a contemporary copy in Vienna. The wind parts are nominally for oboe, but they observe the style, and the restricted choice of notes, of the natural trumpet. This has led several scholars to speculate whether, in fact, the intended instruments are not trumpets rather than oboes, a view to which the present recording subscribes. (Actually, the question is more complex than at first it seems, since the oboe was frequently used in the early eighteenth century as an ersatz trumpet; consider, for example, the use of the solo oboe as a partner to the solo trumpet in the opening movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria, RV589.) What is not in doubt is the very early date of the concerto; it may have been composed before 1710 when Vivaldi was still groping towards the style that finally blazed forth in L’estro armonico of 1711.

from notes by Michael Talbot © 1998