MUSIClassical notes: VIVALDI Concerto No 6 in e, RV484

The majority of Vivaldi’s solo concerti -- some 223 -- are for violin. Surprisingly, the second largest number is for bassoon. Thirty-seven bassoon concerti have survived in their entirety; fragments of two additional ones exist. Vivaldi's solo cello concerti are a distant runner-up, with 27 extant examples. For most of the years between 1703 and 1740, Vivaldi served as a combination of music-master, composer-in-residence, and conductor at the Seminario musicale dell'Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. This institution was itself a combination: orphanage, school, convent, and conservatory for girls. Vivaldi wrote most of his instrumental compositions for the talented girls under his tutelage at the Ospedale. Judging from the astonishing variety of solo instruments featured in these works, Vivaldi's students excelled on virtually every instrument that was in common use during the early 18th century. After a visit to the Pietà in 1739, the French writer De Brosses reported: "They play violin, recorder, organ, oboe, cello, bassoon; in short, there is no instrument large enough to frighten them." Evidently one of the girls at the orphanage was quite the bassoon virtuosa!