Catalogue # CDS4417181

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Vivaldi - The Complete Sacred Music

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Choir of The King’s Consort, The King’s Consort, Robert King

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CD - 11 discs

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Before the 1920s, the suggestion that Vivaldi had composed a\nsignificant corpus of sacred vocal music would have seemed absurd.\nAlmost no church music by him was known to have survived and, since\nhe had never been maestro di cappella at any church, it was\ndifficult to conceive of circumstances in which he would have been\nasked to provide such music in bulk. True he was a priest, and for\nthat reason would have been familiar with the sacred repertoire\nand, one supposes, sympathetic to its aesthetic, but that in itself\nproves nothing. After all, several clerics among composers, Tartini\nbeing the most pertinent example, eschewed vocal music altogether.\nThe situation changed only when Vivaldi’s own huge working\ncollection of manuscripts came to light and was acquired for the\nNational Library in Turin. It then became evident that his\nproduction of church music was substantial – over fifty works have\nsurvived, and the existence of many more is recorded – and that\nthis music was varied, ambitious in form and expression, and on an\nartistic level at least equal to that of his concertos.

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