ABSTRACT
The natural premise for the investigation of documents which relate so exclusively to the activities of the composer himself is that any non-textual or textual feature, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is potential evidence for relative dating. Many manuscripts —including several whose musical texts were entirely copied by scribes —exhibit inscriptions in Antonio Vivaldi's hand which must relate to the composer's initial use and later adaptation of the music. Some of the obvious examples —which normally have clear chronological implications — are remarks concerning the transposition of vocal parts, new instrumentations substituted for original ones, instructions to copyists, and, in the case of several concertos, markings connected with the conversion of a solo part to one for a different instrument. The incidence of some of the markings corresponds very closely with the incidence of varieties of music-paper; the scores of RV 156, 343 and 379 exhibiting the triple cross-hatched sign, for instance, comprise quires of a single batch.
