A. Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E minor | I. Vivace | RV 275 | circa 1711

Ryom-Verzeichnis catalog: RV 275
Former catalog: RV 439
Year composed: circa 1711
Published by: Jeanne Roger in Amsterdam, 1717

Concerto RV 275 was recently cataloged as RV 430 and in its original form as a violin concerto was published in Amsterdam in 1717 by Jeanne Roger (Estienne Roger's eldest daughter) in an anthology entitled "Concerti a Cinque con Violini, Oboè, Violetta, Violoncello e Basso Continuo". This concerto was found in Vivaldi's surviving manuscript dated around 1711, it is believed that Vivaldi composed it in the period when he and his father traveled to his father's birth place Brescia, where his setting of the Stabat Mater (RV 621) was played as part of a religious festival.

The Tale of 2 copies:
One of the copies of this concerto prior to its publication, was circulated with the composer's name in error, it was written as Joseph Meck. This copy came into the possession of Johann Gottfried Walther, who dutifully arranged it for organ, attributing it in good faith to "Sig. Meck". Another copy, this time correctly attributed to Vivaldi fell into the hands of Johan Christoph Graupner, who replaced its middle movement with one possibly composed by himself. Graupner described the result as a concerto for 'Violino Principale o Traversa', having evidently noticed that the simplicity of its writting and its key suited it very well to the flute.

As a result of these 2 copies, this innocent violin concerto generated in turn a concerto for unaccompanied organ ascribed to Meck and a flute concerto that Vivaldi never wrote.

References:
Michael Talbot: The Vivaldi Compendium
Michael Talbot: Vivaldi's Music for Flute and Recorder

Cover Art:
Giacomo Ceruti (1698–1767)
"Portrait of a Cellist" (1745-1750), oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

It is known that Giacomo Ceruti's family was from Brescia where the artist is documented in 1711 and 1721. His first commission was for various works for the parish church of Rino di Sonico, completed in 1723. The following year he signed a group of portraits of leading dignitaries of Brescia, the city in which he lived from 1726 to 1728 in order to work on the decoration of the governor’s residence in the Palazzo Broletto. Some Ceruti's paintings are now in Brescia and are considered the most significant and striking works within his oeuvre. Ceruti travelled around the Veneto between 1734 and 1739. Between 1737 and 1738 the artist was working in the church of Santa Lucia in Padua, returning to Padua the following year. Between 1742 and 1743 he lived in Milan where he continued to paint religious works and portraits. Despite his large output of religious episodes and saints, Ceruti’s principal focus of interest lies in his depictions of beggars.


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