Motet for soprano, strings and basso continuo, RV 624

Critical edition by Michael Talbot

“Edizione critica delle Opere incomplete di Antonio Vivaldi”

S.P.E.S., Florence, 2009

This motet for soprano, strings and basso continuo is the only one by Vivaldi to be preserved outside Italy. It is included in two manuscript collections in London: a set of parts in the Royal College of Music and a score in the British Library. The structure is the conventional one of two arias enclosing a short recitative and followed by a brilliant Alleluia. The incompleteness of the sources (the second evidently copied from the first) is of a rather unusual kind. The existing score comprises a vocal part, an instrumental bass and a fi rst violin part. However, it is clear that there was originally at least one middle part (probably two, to match all the other surviving Vivaldi motets), since the bass part pauses frequently, andon these occasions the fi rst violin part continues as an “upper” voice, not as a bass of the harmony. In the reconstruction, inner parts for second violin and viola have been added by the editor. The task was not diffi cult, since many passages fi nd close parallels elsewhere in Vivaldi’s music.