Contrary to popular beliefs that Vivaldi is repetitive, the concertos are packed with Baroque innovations virtuosic passages feature lively arpeggios, rapid semiquavers and much rhythmic diversity. The sheer number of concertos allows the full emotional range of the cello to be explored, though Vivaldi stays relatively low in its register, fully exploiting the instrument’s rich and sonorous bass.

However, Vivaldi clearly saw the potential in the new instrument, otherwise he would not have gone on to write so much material for it after the violin and bassoon, it is his third most popular solo concerto instrument. Indeed, none of the concertos were published during Vivaldi’s lifetime: they had been written specially for his young female students at the Ospedale della Pietà, where the composer was employed in Venice, and were therefore not widely known. At the time, the instrument was in its infancy, and it was unusual for great composers to write works specifically for solo cello. Vivaldi wrote an astonishing 500 concertos during his lifetime, of which 27 were composed for solo cello.

Vivaldi double cello concerto