By Tom Service [The Guardian, 22 November 2010]
Vivaldi. The world’s most forgetful composer? Why on earth have so many of his manuscripts been turning up in obscure collections across the British Isles in the last couple of months? In October, it was a flute concerto called Il Gran Mogol (“The Great Mogul”, if my Italian’s up to snuff) discovered in the Marquesses of Lothian’s family papers in Edinburgh, and this month, it’s a couple of violin sonatas in a 180-page portfolio donated to the Foundling Museum in London, pieces that were probably originally written for amateurs, which could be heard for the first time in 270 years, played by La Serenissima in Liverpool on Sunday.