In the second half of the XX century two different sets of parts of the concerto for violin and orchestra in D minor were discovered.
In 1958, Albert Vanderlinden discovered the manuscript set of parts of this concerto in the “Este-Obizzi” Collection, held in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, Austria. On the Violone part this source reports: “Concerto del Sig. Torelli”.
In 1967, Peter Ryom found another set of part of this concerto in the Wenster Collection held at the University Library of Lund, Sweden. The frontispiece of this manuscript set reports the following: “Concerto à 7 ex Db / Violino Concertino / 2 Violino Ripieni / 2 Viola / Violon / e / Cembalo / del Sig. / Vivaldi”.
As these two sources report discordant attributions, many musicologists and scholars have tried to solve this mystery. A crucial aspect, in order to verify the reliability of the two manuscripts, is the critical examination of the sources.
Lund
The manuscript copy in Lund, S-L Wenster D.28, is part of the Wenster Collection, held at the Lund University Library. The collection has been compiled and sorted by Christian Wenster (1736-1823). From 1781 to 1806 he was the director musices of the Lund University Academic Orchestra, founded in 1745. During the years that he spent as conductor of the University Orchestra Christian Wenster copied the music which is in the collection by hand. There are no records of any previous source to which he could have referred copying this concerto.
The old catalogue card of the manuscript D.28 reports the following indication in German: “Hat kein zutreffendes Werk”, which means that there are no works corresponding to it. So, the manuscript of this concerto was clearly considered as a unicum, not preserved elsewhere, until Vanderlinden's discovery of the Viennese copy
The same collection includes two compositions undoubtedly written by Antonio Vivaldi: a copy of the violin concerto op. 8 no. 2 “The Summer” RV 315 and a copy of the sonata for two violins RV 74.
The collection also includes another violin concerto in C major, previously attributed to Vivaldi, which turned out to be a composition by Tommaso Albinoni.
