Vivaldi: Concertos for Viola d'amore, RV 97, 394, 395 & 396 (Remastered) Günther Lemmen, Orchestre de Chambre & Jean-François Paillard

• Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741): Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 394:
• 1 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 394: I. Allegro 04:26
• 2 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 394: II. Largo 02:00
• 3 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 394: III. Allegro 03:46
• 4 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in A Major, RV 396: I. Allegro 03:32
• 5 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in A Major, RV 396: II. Andante 02:14
• 6 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in A Major, RV 396: III. Allegro 03:26
• Chamber Concerto in F Major, RV 97:
• 7 Vivaldi: Chamber Concerto in F Major, RV 97: I. Largo - Allegro 04:38
• 8 Vivaldi: Chamber Concerto in F Major, RV 97: II. Andante 03:03
• 9 Vivaldi: Chamber Concerto in F Major, RV 97: III. Allegro 02:44
• Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 395:
• 10 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 395: I. Allegro 04:41
• 11 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 395: II. Andante 01:45
• 12 Vivaldi: Viola d'amore Concerto in D Minor, RV 395: III. Allegro 03:36
• Total Runtime 39:51

Info for Vivaldi: Concertos for Viola d'amore, RV 97, 394, 395 & 396 (Remastered)

Like all good Baroque composers, Vivaldi was a superb performer: records exist of audiences literally fighting to hear him play. One of Vivaldi’s favourite instruments was the viola d’amore, a twelve-stringed invention of the mid-seventeenth century. Typically, six or seven gut strings were played; the lowest three usually wound. Then there was the same number under the unfretted fingerboard; they acted as resonators. The instrument was often tuned to the principal notes of the tonic chord. This fact – and its rather ‘nasal’ resonance - gave the viola d’amore a particularly sweet and soft sound – especially when compared with that of the voila itself. Played on the arm, the viola d’amore was almost the clavichord to the viola’s harpsichord, if you like.

On August 25, 1717 in Cento, Italy, Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) performed on an instrument that was evidently just as unusual then as it is now. According to an eyewitness, the instrument in question was “a special kind of twelve stringed viola called the viola d’amore.”[1] Six of the strings would have been playing, and six resonating. This kind of instrument was not new to him. Records indicate that in 1708 and 1709 Vivaldi was reimbursed for providing viola d’amore strings at the Pietà in Venice, his regular job at a school for orphaned and abandoned girls. Vivaldi’s association with the viola d’amore might have gone back even further. In 1689 he probably had his first chance to play it when he met a certain Nicolo Urio at San Marco. Urio was known to play the d’amore. One of Vivaldi’s last works, the D minor double concerto, RV 540, is for viola d’amore and lute. In his long relationship with the viola of love, Vivaldi not only wrote eight concertos for it, but also worked it into several vocal pieces.

Günther Lemmen, violin
Orchestre de Chambre
Jean-François Paillard, conductor

Digitally remastered

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