There are 36 surviving concertos for solo violin by Carlo Tessarini of Rimini. This is the largest number of surviving violin concertos in the Republic of Venice - after those by Vivaldi and Tartini. In other respects, too, Tessarini stands in Venice in the succession of Vivaldi, but with some special stylistic characteristics that make him interesting even today as a younger Vivaldian.
Tessarini was born into a family in Rimini. He later moved to Venice and was then both violonista in the Cappella ducale di San Marco and - like Vivaldi - also maestro di violino in an orphanage, the so-called Ospedaletto, from

1716 - 32. He was then employed in Urbino at the Cappella del Ss. Sacramento until about 1758, but he spent a large part of his life on the road. Stations of his violinist's itinerant life were Brno (at the Moravian court of Cardinal Count Wolfgang Hannibal von Schrattenbach from c. 1736 - 1738); Paris (1744-46); Amsterdam 1746; England (1747-48), Holland 1760-66). We still do not know exactly when Tessarini died. The last available information about him is dated 15 December 1766.

A testimony to the talented violinist, but also to the fame of his compositions at the time, was left in 1762 by the Groningen organist and composer Jacob Wilhelm Lustig: "Four weeks ago, Tessarini came here and presented us with his wonderful compositions. Despite his grey hair and his 72 years, he reads and writes without glasses like a young man. Every day he makes music tirelessly in the latest style, and his last compositions do not resemble the first twelve concerti in any way. I therefore implore him for all our musicians who are lazily entering their middle years: 'Saint Tessarini, pray for us!'"

Tessarini only became famous, however, when the publisher Le Cène published twelve of his violin concertos in Amsterdam as Opus 1 without Tessarini's knowledge, probably to counterbalance Vivaldi and to show that there was another interesting composer of violin concertos in Venice who could be marketed well. The edition is therefore anything but edited with source-critical accuracy; there are alternative copies of some concertos - for example at Pisendel in Dresden. Be that as it may, Tessarini had enjoyed great success with these violin concertos, especially in England.

Musicologist Piotr Wilk comments on Tessarini's compositional style:

Tessarini "was also a great advocate of ritornello form, which he employed generally in the outer movements of 

his concertos and sometimes throughout a whole work (e.g. Op. 1 Nos. 5, 8). Tessarini imitates Vivaldi like none of his colleagues composing in Venice or on terra firma. This is visible particularly in his motivic writing, rhythms 

and textures, but also in the architectonics of his works. He largely employs a unison motto with octave leaps or a hammer motto. These are not carbon copies of familiar mottos of Vivaldi, but Tessarini’s own ideas inspired by them.

Hirshberg and McVeigh distinguish also a third type of motto, most characteristic of Tessarini, involving the filling-out of larger intervallic leaps with passing notes.

(...)

As a representative of a younger generation, he also naturally and boldly employs galant style, and his melodic writing displays more ornamentation and the use of short phrases broken up with rests. Compared to Vivaldi, his concertos are marked by greater transparency of form and texture, moderation in the use of suggestive means of expression and a simpler scheme of tonal relations. In stylistic terms, Tessarini’s works perfectly illustrate the transition from the Baroque aesthetic towards the early Classical; they represent a bridge between the Baroque and Classical concerto."

Let us now enjoy the Fifth Violin Concerto from the La Cène edition Opus 1. And let us rejoice in its own aesthetic quality!

To be heard here:
Movement 1
Movement 2
Movement 3

Listening companion: