1 Charles Burney, A General History of Music From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, 4 vols. (London, 1776–89), iii, 532.

2 Dates given are of first editions: Wilhelm Joseph von Wasiliewski, Die Violine und ihre Meister (Leipzig, 1869); Andreas Moser, Geschichte des Violinspiels (Berlin, 1923); Edmund van der Straeten, The History of the Violin, its Ancestors and Collateral Instruments, from Earliest Times to the Present Day, 2 vols. (London, 1933); Willi Apel, Die italienische Violinmusik im 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1983); William S. Newman, The Sonata in the Baroque Era (Chapel Hill, 1959).

3 Warren Kirkendale, The Court Musicians in Florence during the Principate of the Medici with a Reconstruction of the Artistic Establishment (Florence, 1993), 432–7.

4 John Walter Hill, Bitti, Martino, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 29 vols (London, 2001), iii, 638; Giancarlo Rostirolla, Bitti, Martino, Martinello, in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Ludwig Finscher, 28 vols. (Kassel, 1994–2008), Personenteil 3, cols. 1696–7.

5 SLUB is the acronym for Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (D-Dl), formerly known as the Sächsische Landesbibliothek. Its holdings of instrumental music originating from the former Saxon Hofkapelle, including all the works by Bitti listed for that library in the present catalogue, are consultable in digital form either via the library's own online catalogue (http://digital.slub-dresden.de/startseite) or via links from the RISM manuscripts database (https://opac.rism.info).

6 Michael Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, The Consort, 68 (2012), 26–52.

7 Michael Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Twenty-Four Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo: An Introduction’ (²/2014), hosted on the Edition HH web site at www.editionhh.co.uk/ab_MartinoBitti.htm.

8 Kirkendale, The Court Musicians in Florence, 434. In accordance with the local Florentine calendar, which until 1749 advanced the year only on Lady Day (25 March), Bitti's year of death was recorded officially as 1742.

9 Ibid., 432, citing I-Fas, Dep. gen. 1543, opening 75.

10 Ibid., 432–3.

11 The portrait is listed in the inventory of Ferdinando's possessions taken immediately after his death (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, GM 1222, f. 97). This inventory is transcribed in Alessandra Baroni, I Medici e l'incisione: Le origini della collezione di stampe degli Uffizi, doctoral dissertation (University of Utrecht, 2008), 186–7.

12 The ‘patchwork’ oratorio (oratorio-centone) containing specially composed arias by numerous contributors was a regular feature of Florentine musical life in this period.

13 Correa l'infausto giorno (with the separate descriptive title of Silvia nella partenza d'Erinto): I-Bc, DD.50, ff. 79–100. No other vocal music by Bitti appears to survive. The lost vocal works are listed and briefly discussed in Kirkendale, The Court Musicians in Florence, 435–7.

14 On performer-centredness generally, see Michael Talbot, ‘The Work-Concept and Composer-Centredness’, in The Musical Work: Reality or Invention?, ed. Michael Talbot (Liverpool, 2000), 168–86.

15 I-Bc, I.030.022. Tartini's adverse comments on Vivaldi's vocal music, as reported by Charles de Brosses, reflect the same tradition of compositional specialization.

16 I-Bc, P.146.186. I am very grateful to Fabrizio Ammetto for alerting me to these references to Bitti and transcribing the quoted passages.

17 I-Bc, P.146.005.

18 I-Bc, P.145.045.

19 Edinburgh, National Records of Scotland, GD18/5202/21.

20 Advertised in the Post Man for 31 October 1702.

21 Advertised in the London Gazette for 2 November 1702.

22 Daily Courant, 27 January 1703.

23 The enduring British nonchalance over the last syllable of Italian words, which, as we saw in the first advertisement, could turn ‘Gasparini’ into ‘Gasparino’, probably accounts for the ‘o’ of ‘Petto’, while the confusion of voiced ‘B’ with voiceless ‘P’ could easily have arisen from mishearing or mispronunciation. ‘Signior Petto’ is tentatively identified with the flautist, bassoonist and bass viol player Pietro Chaboud in Lowell Lindgren, ‘The Great Influx of Italians and Their Instrumental Music into London, 1701–1710’, in Arcangelo Corelli fra mito e realtà storica. Nuove prospettive d'indagine musicologica e interdisciplinare nel 350^o anniversario della nascita. Atti del congresso internazionale di studi, Fusignano, 11–14 settembre 2003, 2 vols., ed. Gregory Barnett, Antonella D'Ovidio and Stefano La Via (Florence, 2007), ii, 419–84 (at 462), but the transmutation of ‘Pietro’ into ‘Petto’ seems rather far-fetched. Earlier, Lindgren had wondered whether Carlo Luigi Pietragrua might have been ‘Signior Petto’: see ‘Nicola Cosimi in London, 1701–1705’, Studi musicali, 11 (1982), 229–48.

24 Daily Courant, 4 April 1715.

25 The sonata is the one in A major coded SV4 in the present catalogue.

26 On Branden's travel diary, see Marie Cornaz, ‘Un Belge à la rencontre d'Antonio Vivaldi: le voyage musical de Corneille van den Branden de Reeth en France et en Italie’, Studi vivaldiani, 13 (2013), 53–83.

27 On Pisendel's travels in Italy, including discussion of his contact with Bitti, see Kai Köpp, Johann Georg Pisendel (1687–1755) und die Anfänge der neuzeitlichen Orchesterleitung (Tutzing, 2005).

28 These are the ‘XII. Sonate a Violino solo e basso continuo’ (with plate number 499) by ‘Martinello Bitti’ advertised in Le Cène's catalogue of 1737, reproduced in facsimile in François Lesure, Bibliographie des éditions musicales publiées par Estienne Roger et Michel-Charles Le Cène (Amsterdam, 1696–1743) (Paris, 1969).

29 Luigi Nerici, Storia della musica in Lucca (Lucca, 1879), 339.

30 Betty Matthews, The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain: List of Members 1738–1984 (London, 1985), 24.

31 I must confess to having earlier doubted that Alessandro was Martino's brother, proposing instead that he was identical with the latter's son Cristofano, who supposedly chose the forename ‘Alessandro’ for professional reasons.

32 On Haym's contacts with Visconti and Alessandro Bitti, see Nicola Francesco Haym: Complete Sonatas, Part 1, ed. Lowell Lindgren (Madison, WI, 2002), vii–x.

33 Nicola Francesco Haym: Complete Sonatas, Part 1, ed. Lowell E. Lindgren (Middleton, 2002), xi.

34 Daily Courant, 18 May 1716. His playing of a concerto implies that Alessandro was acting as leader of the theatre band.

35 Daily Courant, 25 May 1717.

36 Daily Courant, 22 December 1718.

37 Graydon Beeks, ‘Handel and Music for the Earl of Carnarvon’, in Bach, Handel, Scarlatti: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Peter Williams (Cambridge, 1985), 1–20 (at 18).

38 Richardson Wright, Revels in Jamaica, 1682–1738 (New York, 1937), 19.

39 Elizabeth Jane Chevill, ‘Music Societies and Musical Life in Old Foundation Cathedral Cities 1700–60’, unpublished PhD dissertation (University of London, 1993), 90–94, 103, 198–9, 256–60 and 287. See also Rosemary Southey, ‘Commercial Music-Making in Eighteenth Century North-East England: A Pale Reflection of London?’, 2 vols., unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Newcastle, 2001), 48 and 56–57.

40 Chevill, ‘Music Societies’, 158.

41 Kirkendale, The Court Musicians in Florence, 434. Susier's report makes no mention of Alessandro, a fact that suggests discord between the two brothers.

42 As summarized in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vol. II, The Manuscripts of Sir George Wombwell, The Duke of Norfolk, Lord Edmund Talbot, Miss Buxton, Mrs. Harford and Mrs. Wentworth of Woolley (London, 1903), 419. On Wentworth's patronage of the Italian immigrant musician Francesco Maria Barsanti, see Jasmin Cameron and Michael Talbot, ‘A Many-sided Musician: The Life of Francesco Barsanti (c.1690–1775) Revisited’, Recercare, 25 (2013), 63–122.

43 GB-Lbl, Add. MS 31466 (RISM ID no. 806933986). Fuller information on the structure, bibliographical details, scribal hands, inscriptions added by owners and musical content of this manuscript is given in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Twenty-Four Sonatas’, 6–9.

44 The composers represented are: Henricus Albicastro (4 items); Martino Bitti [‘Martino’] (7); Carlo Capellini [‘Capelini’] (1); Arcangelo Corelli (9); Raphael Courteville [‘Courtevill’] (1); Thomas Farmer (1); Giorgio Gentili [‘Gentilis’] (1); Gottfried Finger (14); Carlo Ambrogio Lonati [‘Carlo Ambrosio’] (1); Nicola Matteis junior [‘Young Nicola’] (2); Nicola Matteis senior [‘Old Nicola’] (1); Johann Christoph Pepusch (8); Daniel Purcell (3); Johann Schenck (1); ‘Vitilina’ [Tommaso Antonio Vitali?] (1).

45 London's popularity in the eighteenth century as a destination for visiting musicians from the continent was partly related to the opportunities it offered for having music published, either privately or via a commercial publisher. This was especially true for the genre of the ‘solo’ sonata, where the superiority of the engraving process over the typography still dominant in Italy in the early decades of that century was very clear-cut.

46 The term ‘bass viol’ was frequently used in Britain also for the violoncello, although the six-stringed instrument was fully accepted there as a partner to the violin during the period around 1700.

47 This table ignores the titles given on the folders provided by the Hofkapelle c.1765 for its musical holdings and retained by successor institutions. The title for Mus. 2362-Q-1, the only source among the nine to consist of separate parts rather than a score (although Mus. 2-R-8,3 supplements its score with a separate basso continuo part added later), is taken from the bass part, which originally served as a folder for all three parts. Despite the lack of uniformity in their titling, all the works with ‘R’ in their shelfmark are classifiable as solo sonatas for violin and bass.

48 Bitti's two fugal second movements in A major (SV12.2 and SV14.2) are among a group of eight such movements by five different composers (Corelli, Bitti, Albinoni, Carbonelli, Zuccari) compared in Michael Talbot, ‘Eight “Double-Stopped” Fugues in A Major: Essays in the Union of Counterpoint and Violinistic Virtuosity by Corelli, Bitti, Albinoni, Carbonelli and Zuccari’, Ad Parnassum, forthcoming.

49 Shelfmark MU.MS.662. Cambridge University's online catalogue has an impressively detailed entry on this manuscript, consultable at: http://depfacfm-newton.lib.cam.ac.uk.

50 Another clear indication of autograph status is the inscription on the title page (f.1r), which reads simply: ‘Sonate a Violino Solo | Di Martino Bitti’. Any other scribe would have inserted ‘Signor’ (or some abbreviation of the word) before the name as a required courtesy.

51 On Ottoboni's patronage and cultivation of music, see especially Stefano La Via, ‘Il Cardinale Ottoboni e la musica: nuovi documenti (1700–1740), nuove letture e ipotesi’, in Intorno a Locatelli. Studi in occasione del tricentenario della nascita di Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695–1764), ed. Albert Dunning (Lucca, 1995), 319–526.

52 Shelfmark MU.MS.654.

53 The Ottoboni-Aylesford collection has been discussed in innumerable writings in recent decades, but a useful article to read first is Michael Talbot, ‘Charles Jennens and Antonio Vivaldi’ in Vivaldi veneziano europeo, ed. Francesco Degrada (Florence, 1980), 67–75. For an analysis of the Aylesford collection as a whole that discusses in detail the contents of the 1918 sale catalogue and the present-day location of the items contained in it, see John H. Roberts, ‘The Aylesford collection’, in Handel Collections and Their History, ed. Terence Best (Oxford, 1993), 39–85.

54 A Lombardic rhythm is one characterized by reverse dotting, where the short note (or pair of notes), placed on the beat, precedes the dotted note.

55 Independent variation movements, such as the Folia making up the whole of Corelli's twelfth Op. 5 sonata, occur in the Italian sonata tradition right from the start of the Baroque period: it was their function as single components of multi-movement works that constituted the novelty. Austro-German composers such as Biber had introduced variation movements (often under the title of ‘Aria’) to their sonatas much earlier.

56 If any similar musical style springs to mind, it is that of Mauro d'Alay, a composer already represented by one concerto in the Manchester Concerto Partbooks.

57 GB-Mp, Ms. 580Ct51, vv. 7–9, 11, 13.

58 The Manchester Concerto Partbooks are the subject of Paul J. Everett, The Manchester Concerto Partbooks, 2 vols. (New York, 1989). To complicate matters, a fourteenth volume belonging to the group, accidentally detached from its companions, was acquired by Barclay Squire at the 1918 auction and subsequently passed to the Royal Music Library (GB-Lbl, RM 22.c.28.).

59 RISM ID no. 806549913.

60 For more detailed discussion of Walsh's initiative, see Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 29–32, and idem, ‘Martino Bitti's Twenty-Four Sonatas’, 5–6.

61 SV4 is shelfmarked C30(xi). The sonata is part of the item numbered 143 in William C. Smith, A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by John Walsh during the Years 1695–1720, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1968), 46.

62 GB-DRc, C30(viii). Smith, no. 150 (Bibliography, 48). The four pages of music are paginated 13–16. In the advertisement for this instalment in the Post Man for 27–9 April 1704 the composer's surname appears in a new variant: ‘Beity’. However, both titles in this ‘April’ sonata, like those of the ‘January’ sonata, give it as ‘Betti’.

63 Example in GB-Lbl, h.1729.yy.(2.). This publication was the counterpart of Walsh's Harmonia Mundi […] the First Collection (Smith 257), which in 1707 assembled into a similar set six trio sonatas from the 1704 series.

64 Daily Courant, 23 November 1706. Smith, no. 224 (Bibliography, 71). The advertisement follows the wording of the publication's title page closely.

65 The second movement appears on p. 12 of the treble part and p. 10 of the bass part, the fourth movement on p. 13 of the treble part and p. 11 of the bass part. Further bibliographical details are given in Francesco Passadore, Catalogo tematico delle composizioni di Giuseppe Torelli (1658–1709) (Padua, 2007), 17–18 and 20–21, where Torelli's authorship is assumed.

66 This stamped title, transcribed from the example (without shelfmark) in GB-Ltc, reads: ‘Sonata in a# for VIOLINS | in 3 parts by Torelli perform'd by Sig.^r Gasperini and M.^r Dean at ye Theatre | with a VIOLIN SOLO in a# Publish'd for | Jan.^r price 1s-6d to be Continu'd Monthly | with y.^e Choisest SONATAS and SOLOS by | the Greatest Masters in Europe for y^e Year | 1704’.

67 Fuller bibliographical details and information on source locations are given in Rudolf Rasch, The Music Publishing House of Estienne Roger and Michel-Charles Le Cène 1696–1743 (= My Work on the Internet, Volume Four), Catalogue Gabrielli-Kühnel, 27, at: http://www.let.uu.nl/~Rudolf.Rasch/personal/Roger/Catalogue-Gabrielli-Kühnel.pdf.

68 Nicola Francesco Haym: Complete Sonatas, Part 1, xix.

69 On Erdmann (or ‘Lodovico Ertman’ as he styled himself in Italy), see Michael Talbot, The Vivaldi Compendium (Woodbridge, 2011), 73–4.

70 Hugo Ruf, who edited the sonata for Schott (1997), identifying oboe as the preferred instrument, states that his text is based on a manuscript acquired in 1979 by the Berlin collector Karl Höhner. Ruf transcribes the original title as ‘SONATA | for Oboe or Violin | by Signor Martino Bitti’, which at least establishes its British provenance and raises the intriguing possibility that Bitti brought or sent the sonata to (or even wrote it in) England, something that would fit the Haym connection perfectly. There are some interesting small differences between the musical texts of this manuscript and the 1710 edition, but since all Ruf's editorial interventions are tacit, it is impossible at present to assess their significance.

71 Smith 396 (Catalogue, p. 119). RISM B2758.

72 Johann Gottfried Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon oder musicalische Bibliothec (Leipzig, 1732), 96.

73 Smith 401 (Catalogue, 120–1). RISM B2759.

74 The eight successive keys are C, B flat and G major; then G, C, A and D minor; lastly, F major.

75 GB-Lbl, Add. MS 14335, f. 42r (RISM ID no. 806550319).

76 US-AUS, Finney 38, ff. 39v–41r (RISM ID no. 000113700–01).

77 Rudolf Rasch, ‘I manoscritti musicali nel lascito di Michel-Charles Le Cène (1743)’, in Intorno a Locatelli, 1039–70 (at 1068).

78 Ibid., 1066. See also Michael Talbot, Tomaso Albinoni: The Venetian Composer and His World (Oxford, 1990), 39–40. There is some uncertainty over whether the Albinoni trios numbered 12 or only six.

79 This concerto, and the collection to which it belongs, are analysed exhaustively in Talbot, ‘The Concerto Collection “Roger no. 188”: Its Origin, Nature and Content’, Studi vivaldiani, 12 (2012), 3–36, and the description here merely summarizes what is said there.

80 The two editions of The Harpsichord Master in question are listed as nos. 763 and 764 in William C. Smith and Charles Humphries, A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by the Firm of John Walsh during the Years 1721–1766 (London, 1968), 171. Smith and Humphries 893 (p. 202) is the fifth book of The Lady's Banquet (1735). The same movement also appears in Daniel Wright's The Harpsichord Master Book, published at some point during the 1730s. I repeat here my thanks to H. Diack Johnstone and Andrew Woolley for information on these sources.

81 The complete piece is transcribed in Talbot, ‘The Concerto Collection “Roger no. 188”’, 16.

82 The Praeambulum opening J. S. Bach's Fifth Keyboard Partita (BWV 829) and the slow movement of his Second Brandenburg Concerto (BWV 1047) offer excellent specimens of the form.

83 The opening of the concerto's fourth movement is illustrated in Talbot, ‘The Concerto Collection “Roger no. 188”’, 14.

84 I use ‘chamber’ and ‘church’ in a conventional, predominantly analytical spirit, knowing that these terms, when employed in a historical sense, refer to context and purpose rather than merely style and structure.

85 The opening of SV4.3, quoted as Illustration 11 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 46, is typical of the species.

86 A facsimile of the third movement appears in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 31. SV8 departs from the pure da camera model also in having an ‘abstract’ second movement.

87 Three out of the four movements in the Torelli G minor violin with which Walsh closed the periodical publication of 1704 similarly feature the Devise, the export of which to instrumental music seems to have enjoyed something of a vogue in the years around 1700.

88 Opening shown as Illustration 6 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 41.

89 The second section of the Gavotta, where this allusion occurs (in bars 26-29), is quoted as Illustration 9 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 43. A similar allusion to the stile antico occurs in the second section of the Gavotta of the eighth recorder sonata (SR8.3).

90 The first six bars of this movement appear as Illustration 8 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 42.

91 Reproduced in facsimile in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 36.

92 The opening of the fourth movement appears as Illustration 14 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 49. The criterion for a ‘stretto’ fugue is that the subject and its answer overlap at their first statement.

93 Bars 1–8 are shown as Illustration 13 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 48.

94 Reproduced in facsimile in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 35.

95 The final episode is quoted as Illustration 10 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 45. Although I use the traditional English description of ‘double-stopped’, this fugue in fact operates at times in three polyphonic parts (plus the bass).

96 The opening page of this movement is reproduced in facsimile in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 37.

97 Although the barring and note-grouping conform to 6/8 metre, Bitti rather oddly uses ‘3’ as his time signature. Perhaps the reason is that he conceived the bars, as he sometimes does elsewhere (for instance, in SV14.3), as ‘double-length’: a duplicated 3/8 rather than a straightforward 6/8.

98 Bitti himself would not easily have recognized these categories, which had been superseded in the seventeenth century by the transitional system of tuoni ecclesiastici.

99 Vivaldi has plentiful multiple stopping, but not much of it is polyphonic.

100 A particularly celebrated instance of leapfrogging occurs between the two singers at the start of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

101 A similar instance, this time with rising motion, is shown by Illustration 10 in Talbot, ‘Martino Bitti's Violin Sonatas’, 45.

102 Chromatic inflections in the sources are naturally interpreted according to the conventions observed in Bitti's period, which in some respects differ from those in use today. An accurate ‘translation’ of the notation of the original sources into modern notation automatically results in the loss of some accidentals and the gain of others. Alterations of this kind are not shown or discussed.