Six concertos for Anna Maria, volume 1

The so-called ‘Anna Maria Partbook’ consists of an elegantly bound volume in red leather containing the violin part of 31 highly virtuoso violin concertos, 26 of which are by Vivaldi. The collection represents the personal repertoire of the Venetian composer’s most gifted pupil, the famous ‘Anna Maria della Pietà’, who also played the viola d’amore, mandolin, theorbo and harpsichord. Twenty of the Vivaldi concertos are known from other manuscript sources and are therefore familiar to us in their complete versions. The remaining six — three for violin and three for violin and organ — are unique to the Anna-Maria Partbook, and, because they are incomplete, have not hitherto been part of the Vivaldi performing canon. Now, as a result of Federico Maria Sardelli’s rigorous musicological research and painstaking work of reconstruction based on many concordant sources, we are at last able to enjoy these six concertos in startlingly persuasive realizations.