The so-called “Anna Maria Partbook” consists of an elegantly bound volume in red leather containing the violin parts of 31 violin concertos, of which 26 are by Antonio Vivaldi. It was the personal repertoire of Vivaldi's most gifted pupil, the famous “Anna Maria della Pietà”, who played also the viola d'amore, the mandolin, the theorbo, and the harpsichord. Anna Maria's partbook represents an extraordinary collection of violin concerts of high virtuosity.
20 of the 26 Vivaldi concerts are also known from other manuscript sources. The remaining 6 are known only from the source of Anna Maria, and therefore incomplete: they are divided into 3 concerts for violin and 3 concerts for violin and organ, a pair of instruments widely used by Vivaldi and the Pietà. Of these 6 concerts left out of the Vivaldi repertoire due to their incompleteness, Federico Maria Sardelli carried out a reconstruction based on many authentic concordant sources: this serious philological work allows us to enjoy 6 new concerts of Vivaldi, performed by leading Vivaldi interpreters of our days: violinist Federico Guglielmo and the ensemble Modo Antiquo under the direction of Sardelli, who give their debut on Glossa with this recording. © Glossa