Unique version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in Manchester, UK
/By THE GUARDIAN
Sunday, February 21, 2016
La Serenissima ensemble
It might come as a surprise to learn that the third largest collection of Vivaldi manuscripts belongs to Manchester. How these priceless scores came to reside in the city’s Henry Watson Music Library is a fascinatingly convoluted tale involving the acquisition by Charles Jennens, the librettist of Handel’s Messiah, of manuscripts purchased – by weight – from a bankrupted Italian cardinal.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that this stack was discovered, by Michael Talbot, to contain 12 previously unknown violin sonatas and the only fair copy of The Four Seasons bearing the evidence of supervision in Vivaldi’s own hand. Appropriately, it was the Manchester Four Seasons that Adrian Chandler’s ensemble La Serenissma elected to play with the part-books proudly on display in the foyer.