page_title: L'estro armonico
section_title: Transcriptions and arrangements for keyboard instruments
hierarchical_section_title: L'estro armonico / Transcriptions and arrangements for keyboard instruments
caption_attribution_description: Autograph score of the first movement of BWV 596, Johann Sebastian Bach's transcription of Vivaldi's double violin concerto Op.3. No.11.
context_page_description: L'estro armonico, Op. 3, is a set of 12 concertos for stringed instruments by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, first published in Amsterdam in 1711. Vivaldi's Twelve Trio Sonatas, Op. 1, and Twelve Violin Sonatas, Op. 2, only contained sonatas, thus L'estro armonico was his first collection of concertos appearing in print. It was also the first time he chose a foreign publisher, Estienne Roger, instead of an Italian. Each concerto was printed in eight parts: four violins, two violas, cello and continuo. The continuo part was printed as a figured bass for violone and harpsichord.
  The concertos belong to the concerto a 7 format, that is: for each concerto there are seven independent parts. In each consecutive group of three concertos, the first is a concerto for four violins, the second for two violins, and the third a solo violin concerto. The cello gets solistic passages in several of the concertos for four and two violins, so that a few of the concertos conform to the traditional Roman concerto grosso format where a concertino of two violins and cello plays in contrast to a string orchestra. L'estro armonico pioneered orchestral unisono in concerto movements.
context_section_description: The many surviving transcriptions of Vivaldi's L'estro armonico reflect the immediate popularity of these works within his lifetime. As Talbot (2010) points out, Op.3, No.5, RV 519, by far the most popular concerto of the set in the British Isles, was so often performed in public and private that it was simply referred to as "Vivaldi's Fifth". The collection—and especially the fifth concerto—spawned many arrangements for keyboard instruments. The great success of Vivaldi's concertos during his lifetime was matched by his rapid descent into obscurity after his death in 1741. As Vivaldi scholars agree, some of the earliest and most significant transcriptions—those made in Weimar in the 1710s by Johann Sebastian Bach as part of a series of arrangements for keyboard and organ of Italian and Italianate concertos—indirectly played a decisive role in restoring Vivaldi's reputation during the so-called "Vivaldi revival" in the twentieth century.
  The Ryom-Verzeichnis, explained in detail in the two volumes Ryom (1986) and Ryom (2007), contains a summary of the known surviving publications, handwritten manuscript copies and arrangements of the concertos. Of these six were arranged by Bach: three of those for solo violin were arranged for harpsichord; two double violin concertos for organ (two keyboards and pedal); and one of the concertos for four violins was arranged for four harpsichords and orchestra. Four further keyboard arrangements appear in Anne Dawson's book, an English anthology dating from around 1720 of arrangements for clavichord, virginal or harpsichord prepared by an unknown hand. As Ryom (1986, pp. 616–617) points out, the fifth concerto Op.3, No.5, RV 519, is the unique concerto to have resulted in so many transcriptions: these are described in detail in Talbot (2010).
  The concerto transcriptions by Bach were probably made in Weimar where he was employed as court organist and later concertmaster in the period 1708–1717. It is thought likely that many of the transcriptions were made in 1713/1714, when Bach would have had access to a copy of L'estro armonico brought back to Weimar by the young Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar after a two-year stay in the Netherlands. Bach made harpsichord arrangements of three of the concertos for solo violin:
  Op.3, No.3, RV 310, arranged as BWV 978
  Op.3, No.9, RV 230, arranged as BWV 972
  Op.3, No.12, RV 265, arranged as BWV 976
  He arranged two of the double violin concertos for the organ, scored for two manuals and pedal:
  Op.3, No.8, RV 522, arranged as BWV 593
  Op.3, No.11, RV 565, arranged as BWV 596
  There is a much later arrangement of one of the concertos for four violins as a concerto for four harpsichords and strings. It has been dated to Bach's period in Leipzig, probably in the late 1720s or early 1730s.
  Op.3, No.10, RV 580, arranged as BWV 1065
  Bach's transcriptions were not widely disseminated. They were only published in the 1840s and 1850s by C. J. Peters in the editions prepared by Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl—part of the nineteenth century "Bach revival". At that stage all of Bach's concerto transcriptions were described as "after Vivaldi", regardless of authorship. Problems with attribution were raised again by the new edition of the concerto transcriptions published by the Bach-Gesellschaft in the 1890s. The controversy that ensued in the 1910s in assessing their authorship and that of the original concertos sparked the Vivaldi revival, which involved a reevaluation of Vivaldi and the eventual rediscovery of his numerous "lost" works.
  Anne Dawson's Book, part of a bequest of baroque musical manuscripts now held in the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester, contains arrangements for single-manual instrument of the following concertos:
  Op.3, No.5, RV 519 (2 violins, violoncello)
  Op.3, No.7, RV 567 (4 violins)
  Op.3, No.9, RV 230 (solo violin)
  Op.3, No.12, RV 265 (solo violin)
   
  Selfridge-Field describes these as replacing "the virile acrobatics of Vivaldi's violino principale [by] the gentle graces of virginal ornamentation: shakes, coulées, long apoggiaturas, and 
caption: Autograph manuscript of BWV 596, Bach's transcription of Op.3, No.11, which became part of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's repertoire.[16]
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