Vivaldi and the oboe

One might say that Vivaldi and the oboe grew up with one another in Venice. Perfected in France in the middle of the seventeenth century, the oboe did not quickly win currency in Italy, but in 1692, just as the adolescent Vivaldi was about to embark on his training for the priesthood, we find the first use of the instrument in a Venetian operatic score, and in 1698 the cappella of the ducal church of S.Marco, where the composer’s father Giovanni Battista served as a violinist, appointed its first oboist, Onofrio Penati. By 1700 the Ospedale dei Mendicanti also boasted an oboist, Barbara, who was mentioned in Vincenzo Coronelli’s vade mecum for visitors to Venice, Guida dei forestieri. In 1703, Concurrently with Vivaldi’s appointment there as violin master, the Ospedale della Pietà engaged an oboe teacher, Ignazio Rion, who in 1706 was succeeded by Ludwig Erdmann (known also for marrying one of the foundlings resident at the Pietà, Maddalena). In 1713 Ignaz Sieber filled the vacancy left by Erdmann’s departure to Florence in 1708. Vivaldi was already composing for the oboe within a short time of its introduction to the Pietà: his sonata for oboe, violin, organ and chalumeau RV779 (c.1709) identifies the oboist as Pellegrina. During her long period of activity at the Pietà, pellegrina (1678-1754) taught the instrument to many other figlie di coro. One of Vivaldi’s approximately eighteen surviving oboe concertos (one always has to be cautious with statistics in Vivaldi’s case because of disputed attributions), RV 462, probably belongs to this early period preceding the publication of L’estro armonico, op.3, in 1711.