Vivaldi’s renown as a composer began in the early 1700s. After a Dutch music publisher issued a collection of his concertos in 1711, his fame spread throughout Europe. Today his reputation rests primarily on his legacy of nearly 500 instrumental concertos. His most popular work, The Four Seasons, is a series of four programmatic violin concertos. Some 230 other Vivaldi concertos feature solo violin. About sixty more have survived that fall into the category of concerto à quattro: for a full string complement and continuo, with no soloist. This type – known as a ripieno concerto – fell out of favor as the popularity of the solo concerto grew, which means that such works probably date from the early 1700s. ....Program Notes by Laurie Shulman
VIDEO: Antonio Vivaldi Sinfonia for Strings and B.C. in F major RV 137: I. Allegro 0:14 II. Andante 2:08 III. Allegro 5:38 I Virtuosi delle Muse
