It is dominated by the dotted rhythms characteristic of a French overture. The Largo ‘Domine Deus, Rex coelestis’ is in the form of a duet between the solo soprano and the solo violin, followed by the joyful F major ‘Domine Fili unigenite’ chorus in what Vivaldi and his contemporaries would have regarded as the ‘French style’. ‘Gratias agimus tibi’ is a very broad and entirely homophonic prelude to a fugal allegro on ‘Propter magnam gloriam’. ‘Laudamus te’, a lively duet for the two sopranos, gives us some hint of the skill of Vivaldi’s young singers. Its imitative and expressive chromatic texture evokes the motets of the Renaissance era, the so-called ‘stile antico’. It is in triple rather than duple time, in a minor key, and rather slower.

The B minor ‘Et in terra pax’ is in nearly every way a contrast to the first. The choir enters in chorale-like fashion, syllabically declaiming the text in regular rhythms, contrasting with the orchestral ritornello, which contains most of the melodic interest of the movement. The extensive orchestral introduction establishes two simple motives: one of octave leaps, the other a quicker, quaver-semiquaver figure these function as the ritornello. The opening movement is a joyous chorus, with trumpet and oboe obbligato.

Like the other works in tonight’s programme, the Gloria is in D, the key of rejoicing. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei (alto and chorus).The wonderfully sunny nature of the Gloria, with its distinctive melodies and rhythms, is characteristic of all of Vivaldi’s music, giving it an immediate and universal appeal. This, his most famous choral piece, presents the traditional Gloria from the Latin Mass in twelve varied cantata-like sections. Vivaldi, a priest, music teacher and virtuoso violinist, composed many sacred works for the Ospedale, where he spent most of his career, as well as hundreds of instrumental concertos to be played by the girls’ orchestra. The Ospedale prided itself on the quality of its musical education and the excellence of its choir and orchestra. Vivaldi composed this Gloria in Venice, probably in 1715, for the choir of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls (or more probably a home, generously endowed by the girls’ ‘anonymous’ fathers, for the illegitimate daughters of Venetian noblemen and their mistresses). For two sopranos, alto, chorus and orchestra

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