Vivaldi: Concerto Il Gran Mogul for flute, strings & continuo in D minor, RV431a

World premiere recordings of Vivaldi scores recently discovered in Europe.

This is the 45th title in the Vivaldi Edition, 3 years after the first recording dedicated to Vivaldi scores discovered in Europe between 2000 and 2007, now in its 12th year. This second volume features the most recent discoveries in world premiere recordings and will further contribute to complete one of the most fascinating jigsaw puzzles in musical history Federico Maria Sardelli is a member of the musicological committee of the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi at the Fondazione Cini in Venice, for which he has published numerous scholarly essays. In July 2007 Peter Ryom chose him to continue his monumental work of cataloguing the music of Antonio Vivaldi; since then, Sardelli has been the editor of the Vivaldi Werkverzeichnis (RV).

Since 2008 the harvest has been abundant enough to nourish this second volume of Vivaldian revelations, including a violin concerto, a flute concerto and 4 opera arias from 'L'inganno trionfante in amore', one of the most important lost opera scores of Vivaldi.

Alongside Sardelli and his orchestra Modo Antiquo, the recording features such illustrious names as mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg, violinist Anton Steck and flautist Alexis Kossenko.

Vivaldi joined the staff of the Ospedale della Pietà in September 1703 as Maestro di Violin. Established in the 14th century, the Pietà was one of four charitable Venetian orphanages for women supported by the state. Vivaldi’s instrumental chamber works cannot be dated with any certainty, nor do we know for whom they were written. Despite this lack of information, we can surmise he produced them for his pupils at the Pietà, perhaps during the late 1720's and 1730's.

Bach, Telemann and several French composers all explored the chamber concerto medium to a great degree. 18th-century Italian composers, who concentrated on opera, sacred and secular music for the voice, appear to have ignored it, with the exception of Vivaldi. Our modern image of Vivaldi is primarily that of a secular composer, yet much of his work was intended for performances in the church. The importance of sacred music for solo voice in the oeuvre of Vivaldi emerges with a bolds statistic: of his fifty or so extant sacred vocal works, thirty are for solo voice.

These sacred pieces reflect the talents of the orphans at the Ospedale della Pietà, which maintained an allfemale choir and orchestra responsible for the music in its chapel. Despite its ability to perform choral music at a very high standard, the Pietà also laid special emphasis on works for solo voice.

Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima, winners of 2010’s Gramophone Award in the Baroque Instrumental category for Vivaldi: The French Connection (AV2178), present the sequel, The French Connection 2, which features the world-premiere recording of Il Gran mogul, the lost Vivaldi Flute Concerto recently rediscovered in the National Archives of Scotland.

Unearthing of the score – which has been authenticated by the world’s leading Vivaldi scholars – made international, mainstream news and this first recording, by today’s leading exponents of the music of Vivaldi, is eagerly anticipated. The album contains nine concertos in all, including another premiere of a recently discovered Violin Concerto.

The French Connection enjoyed success on both sides of the pond, with a Top 3 Billboard Classical Chart position and nationwide airplay in the US as well as the UK.