The manuscript sources of music that have come down to us often contain lacunae of varied nature and varying degrees of gravity. There exist works that the composer himself has left in incomplete form for the most diverse reasons, which include haste, a passing creative fatigue, the advent of second thoughts, the abandonment of the task, illness and, finally, death. Then there are cases of incompleteness due to a chance accident that has resulted in the loss of some portion of the source: individual parts, or gatherings or folios of a score, that have gone missing, been torn out or been rendered illegible.
Such are the causes lying behind the two commonest kinds of incompleteness: the “vertical” incompleteness caused by the absence of bars, sections or whole movements, and the “horizontal” incompleteness that results when one or more parts of the score are missing. Horizontal lacunae often make a piece unperformable, on other occasions they can be less damaging, allowing the gap to be filled with almost riskfree reconstructions. Vertical incompleteness, in contrast, nearly always allows performance of the surviving portions, unless the lost portion is particularly large. The ‘Incomplete Works’ series aims to restore an important corpus of Vivaldi’s music, limiting the editorial intervention to simple operations and avoiding departing too much from the original. Originally published between 2001 and 2009 by S.P.E.S. (Florence), the series was entirely reissued by Ricordi in 2017.
Critical Editions available
Carae rosae, respirate, mottetto per soprano, archi e basso continuo, RV 624
Edited by Michael Talbot (2017)
Concerti per violino, archi e basso continuo, RV 320, RV 378, RV 745
Edited by Olivier Fourés (2017)
Concerti per flauto traversiere, archi e basso continuo, RV 431-431a, RV 432
Edited by Federico M. Sardelli (2017)
Concerti per fagotto, archi e basso continuo, RV 468, RV 482
Edited by Federico M. Sardelli (2017)
Concerto per due violini e due violoncelli, archi e basso continuo, RV 575
Edited by Federico M. Sardelli (2017)
Concerto in due cori con due violini e organi obbligati, archi e basso continuo, RV 584
Edited by Federico M. Sardelli (2017)
Invicti bellate, mottetto per contralto, archi e basso continuo, RV 628
Edited by Federico M. Sardelli (2014)
Regina caeli, Antifona per tenore (o contralto) due trombe, archi e basso continuo, RV 615
Edited by Michael Talbot (2017)
Sonate per violino e basso continuo, RV 11, RV 37
Edited by Michael Talbot (2017)