Giuseppe Torelli and the birth of the Violin Concerto

Pietro Battistoni

Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709), a violinist and composer famous all over Europe during his lifetime, has not received much attention in today's concert programs and academic environments. This research has a twofold intention: reconstruct the life of Torelli and investigate the origins of a genre of which he is considered to be the father, the soloistic concerto. As a case of study, an in-depth analysis is been drawn of one violin concerto, which has a debated authorship nowadays, poised between Torelli and Vivaldi. The results are presented in three chapters: the first one contains the biography; in the second one it is outlined how Torelli redefined the form of the pre-existing Concerto Grosso, thanks to the activity of his predecessors and to the peculiar context in which he was active. This process resulted in the arise of the concerto for solo instrument, which already presented all the characteristics that made this musical form so popular and successful amongst his contemporaries and the following generations. The third chapter consists of an analysis of the Concerto for violin in D minor A.2.3.9/RV813. Through the examination of the primary sources, its transcription for solo keyboard made by Johann Sebastian Bach and the stylistic patterns used, I intend to demonstrate that the attribution to Torelli is more plausible. The inquiry about this repertoire through a musicological and historical contextualization can bring to a more grounded awareness in how to approach this music as a performer and, hopefully, it will lead to a rediscovery of musical treasures.

Chapter 3 - CASE STUDY

The author of the Concerto for violin in D minor A.2.3.9: Vivaldi or Torelli?

The concerto for violin and orchestra in D minor that we are going to analyse in this chapter appears both in Vivaldi's catalogue, as RV 813 (previously RV Anh. 10), and in Torelli's one, as A.2.3.9. This composition has been for a long time and still is a fascinating enigma amongst musicologists. Its authorship, in fact, is still uncertain, divided between Giuseppe Torelli and Antonio Vivaldi.

Only one version of this composition was known: the transcription in B minor for solo keyboard, BWV 979, made by Johann Sebastian Bach.

This transcription belongs to the corpus of arrangements of concertos from different authors that Bach made when he was working as organist at the court of Weimar. He realized in total 22 transcriptions, of which 16 are for keyboard (manualiter), BWV 972-987 and 6 are for a keyboard instrument with the pedal board (pedaliter), BWV 592-597. Around 1715 Johann Bernhard Bach, Johann Sebastian's second cousin, copied twelve of these concertos in a single manuscript, which is now held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, shelf mark P 280. This manuscript bears the title «XII Concerto di Vivaldi, elaborati di J.S.Bach», on which – later on – Johann Bernhard's son, Johann Ernest, added the indication of property «Johann Ernest Bach, Lipsiensis 1739». According to that title, these concertos were all considered to be compositions by Vivaldi for a long time; it turned out that only 6 of them were actually by Vivaldi, while the others were composed by various authors: Georg Philipp Telemann, Alessandro Marcello, Tommaso Albinoni, Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar and unknown (for the concerto that we are examining).

Contextualisation

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