Ensemble Caprice - Vivaldi: The Return of the Angels (2011/2019) [Hi-Res]

Following Ensemble Caprice’s first recording of Vivaldi’s sacred music ( Gloria! Vivaldi and his Angels) we return to Vivaldi’s Venice and find ourselves yet again within the confines of the Ospedale della Pietà orphanage where, beginning in 1703, Vivaldi, the Red Priest, not only taught the orphan girls violin and singing (!), but also composed many of his most dazzling concertos as well as a substantial part of his highly inspired corpus of sacred music.

To this day, it seems almost unbelievable that these very demanding scores could be successfully performed by young women. However, their concerts must have been of a very high standard, judging from the celebrity status they enjoyed throughout Europe.

Of course the picturesque scenario of young women performing in church undoubtedly fired the imagination of countless listeners who would come from far and wide to hear the orphans perform musical miracles in Venice.

In 1720 an English traveler, Edward Wright, gives us the following account of those events:

Every Sunday and holiday there is a performance of music in the chapels of these hospitals, vocal and instrumental, performed by the young women of the place, who are set in a gallery above and, though not professed, are hid from any distinct view of those below by a lattice of ironwork. The organ parts, as well as those of other instruments, are all performed by the young women. They have a eunuch for their master, and he composes their music. Their performance is surprisingly good, and many excellent voices are among them. And this is all the more amusing since their persons are concealed from view.

It was both absurd and comical for Wright to assume that the composer was a eunuch, but it shows how the imagination of the male listeners got carried away when hearing those celestial angelic sounds produced by an invisible female orchestra and choir.

After having met Vivaldi in Venice in 1739, a French jurist, Charles de Brosse, reports that

…about forty girls take part in every concert. I vow to you that there is nothing so diverting as the sight of a young and pretty nun in white habit, with a bunch of pomegranate blossoms over her ear, conducting the orchestra and beating time with all the grace and precision imaginable.

Further proof of the incredible quality (and attraction) of these concerts is provided by no less a celebrity than the sophisticated French philosopher (and part-time composer) Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in 1743 had nothing but praise for the achievements of the young girls:

Every Sunday, vocal music for a large chorus with a large orchestra, which is composed and directed by the greatest masters in Italy, is performed in barred-off galleries solely by girls, of whom the oldest is not twenty years of age. One can conceive of nothing as voluptuous, as moving, as this music.

Knowing for instance that J.S. Bach only heard his own sacred music sung publicly in church by boys and men and never by women, we can only assume how much the titillation of these exciting rumours about the female choir and orchestra in Venice must have stirred the imagination of music lovers north of the Alps.

During the course of the present recording, we move from Vivaldi’s description of war to his musical depiction of the joys of peace.

Gabriele Hierdeis, soprano
Shannon Mercer, soprano
Laura Pudwell, mezzo-soprano
Alexis Basque, trumpet
Matthew Jennejohn, baroque oboe
Ensemble Caprice
Matthias Maute, conductor