Vivaldi: Sacred works for soprano & concertos

Florilegium;
Manahan Thomas, Elin

CCS SA 32311

Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas joins the baroque ensemble Florilegium for Laudate pueri and Nulla in mundo, whilst the group’s founder Ashley Solomon takes centre-stage in the recently-rediscovered flute concerto Il Gran Mogol (receiving only its second outing on record here). • Vivaldi joined the staff of the Ospedale della Pietà in September 1703 as Maestro di Violin. Established in the 14th century, the Pietà was one of four charitable Venetian orphanages for women supported by the state. Vivaldi’s instrumental chamber works cannot be dated with any certainty, nor do we know for whom they were written. Despite this lack of information, we can surmise he produced them for his pupils at the Pietà, perhaps during the late 1720's and 1730's. • Bach, Telemann and several French composers all explored the chamber concerto medium to a great degree. 18th-century Italian composers, who concentrated on opera, sacred and secular music for the voice, appear to have ignored it, with the exception of Vivaldi. Our modern image of Vivaldi is primarily that of a secular composer, yet much of his work was intended for performances in the church. The importance of sacred music for solo voice in the oeuvre of Vivaldi emerges with a bolds statistic: of his fifty or so extant sacred vocal works, thirty are for solo voice. • These sacred pieces reflect the talents of the orphans at the Ospedale della Pietà, which maintained an all-female choir and orchestra responsible for the music in its chapel. Despite its ability to perform choral music at a very high standard, the Pietà also laid special emphasis on works for solo voice.

SACD

Muzyka klasyczna

Channel Classics

14-01-2012

723385323112

BBC Music Magazine: 5/5 stars (2011)

Classics Today 9/10 (2011)

Pizzicato: Supersonic 5 music notes (2011)