In 1703 Antonio Vivaldi, later known as the Red
Priest, was appointed a violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. It was a
convent and orphanage generously endowed by anonymous fathers, for the illegitimate
daughters of Venetian noblemen and their mistresses. Its music school gained a very high
reputation for its standards of musical education and the excellence of its choir and
orchestra. Much of Vivaldi's sacred vocal and instrumental music was written for
performance at the Pieta.
Among at least three versions of the Gloria composed by Vivaldi the one usually known as the
Vivaldi Gloria is RV 589. It was composed in Venice, probably in 1715, for the choir of
the Ospedale della Pieta. It is in 12 movements fully involving the chorus is nine of
them. However well received it may have been at the time, this Gloria lay undiscovered
until the late 1920s, when it was found buried among a pile of forgotten Vivaldi
manuscripts. It was not performed in modern times until September 1939 in Siena, and it
was not until 1957 that the now familiar original version was published. |
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Want to get to know your part in advance of the Workshop?
Try the on-line MIDI parts at Cyberbase.
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You'll probably do best with headphones. Click the chosen part and
movement, and this should call up your sound software (Windows Media Player, or Real
Player, for instance). Cyberbase has an embedded media player which may work straightaway.
All players allow you to slow down the playback if it helps. |
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