Vivaldi, and Music for Angels and Orphans

I've blogged before about Vivaldi (aka "the red priest) for several reasons. He's one of my all time favorite composers and had such an interesting career. Briefly, he was ordained as a Catholic Priest and then left active ministry to teach and compose full time. He spent most of his career as the violin master at at an orphanage called the Pio Ospedale della Pietà (Devout Hospital of the Mercy) in Venice. The music training program for the young ladies was quite well known and prestigious, and was instrumental in attracting financial support for the orphanage.

I recently heard a performance of Music for the Chapel of the Pieta on my local public radio station. As with so much of Vivaldi's sacred music, it is both joyous and prayerful. The opening of the concerto is particularly interesting in that it is commonly thought that the solo violin represents the presence of the Virgin Mary, with the soprano answering Her in prayer. The whole thing is fairly lightly scored, allowing the performers a lot of leeway in how they interpret the work. The UK based group that performed the work is called "La Serenissima" which means "the most serene." It's a term that has historically been used to describe Venice, Italy, and they specialize in performing the works of Vivaldi. It's a marvelous performance of a very challenging piece.

And even better, the same recording by the same group is available on magnatune.com so you can listen to it for free or download it for practically nothing.

So listen, enjoy, and be uplifted.