Al-Bunduqiyya – The Lost Concerto

The charismatic, cosmopolitan cellist Giovanni Sollima joins the instrumentalists of Il Pomo d’Oro for Al-Bunduqiyya – The Lost Concerto.

The album, which crosses cultures and eras, sets Vivaldi, born in Venice in 1678, in the context of his native city’s historical relationship with the eastern Mediterranean and Asia. Al-Bunduqiyya is the Arabic name for Venice and ‘The Lost Concerto’ (Il Concerto Perduto) is a work composed in 2021 by Sollima. His starting point was all that remains of one of Vivaldi’s concertos for cello: the orchestral viola part, now preserved at the Venice Conservatory.

Among the other items are complete concertos by Vivaldi, solo improvisations by Sollima, a piece by Vivaldi’s contemporary Tartini, and music of the Cypriot and Albanian traditions.

When the programme of Al-Bunduqiyya was performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, Seen and Heard International wrote: “Sollima conjured a feast of tone colours, plunging into pizzicatos, climbing to the heights of the fingerboard with Romantic bravura, conjuring ornamental flourishes with improvisatory flair, finding intense sentiment before whipping up a wild dance and concluding with some glissandi yelps! This was as much theatre as music.”