63. Antonio Vivaldi - Gloria, RV 589 (1700s)

Recording

Title: Gloria - Magnificat
Performers: Taverner Consort and Players
Director: Andrew Parrott
Year: 1992
Length: 30 minutes

Review

So we get to Vivaldi, one of the defining voices of the baroque, and one of the most popular as well. From this Gloria we can easily see why he is so popular, his music has a joy that can only come from spending a life surrounded by young women who he taught how to play music at an orphanage in Venice.

In fact this Gloria was composed for those girls to sing, and even if it is a very respectful piece as any setting of the Gloria it is also quite playful, and that is something that always comes out in Vivaldi. Even the serious movements of this have some embellishment that is a little ray of sunshine.

Then it is supremely catchy, once heard it is hard to unhear Vivaldi, from the trademark rapid violins to the choral work here, it all conspires to make some quite catchy music, and also one of the most pleasant choral works to date.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Many of Vivaldi's compositions reflect a buoyant, almost playful, exuberance which are in direct contrast with the dignified seriousness of much Baroque music in his time. Most of Vivaldi's repertoire was rediscovered only in the first half of the 20th century in Turin and Genoa and was published in the second half. Vivaldi's music is innovative, breaking a consolidated tradition in schemes; he gave brightness to the formal and the rhythmic structure of the concerto, repeatedly looking for harmonic contrasts and invented innovative melodies and themes. Moreover, Vivaldi was able to compose non-academic music, particularly meant to be appreciated by the wide public and not only by an intellectual minority. The joyful appearance of his music reveals in this regard a transmissible joy of composing. These are among the causes of the vast popularity of his music. This popularity soon made him famous in other countries such as France which was, at the time, very independent concerning its musical taste.

Gloria: