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Countless performances by choirs, both amateur and professional, and an enormous crop of recordings testify to the enduring popularity of one of Antonio Vivaldi\u2019s greatest hits, Gloria.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n His Gloria<\/em> in D major RV589 is so deeply embedded in the choral repertory<\/a> as to fall into the category of eternal fixtures, a billing that disguises its disappearance for almost two centuries after the composer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n The piece, a multi-movement setting of a key text from the Latin Mass, was possibly written from 1713-17 \u2013 together with a now-lost Kyrie<\/em> \u2013 for the residents of the Ospedale della Piet\u00e0, one of four charitable institutions for the orphaned and abandoned girls of Venice, many of whom had been fathered by philandering noblemen or Grand Tour visitors to the north Italian city-state. Vivaldi taught music to and composed for the Piet\u00e0\u2019s girls, apparently trusting its talent pool of older singers to perform chorus parts notated for tenor and bass.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> The work\u2019s modern revival began in Mussolini\u2019s Italy soon after the outbreak of the Second World War in the autumn of 1939. It was performed in company with Vivaldi<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Stabat mater<\/em><\/a><\/strong> under the direction of Alfredo Casella<\/strong><\/a> during his Vivaldi Week in Siena, a combination that introduced audiences already familiar with his instrumental concerto<\/a><\/strong>s to the fact that the composer, an ordained priest, also wrote sacred music. It became established as the<\/em> Vivaldi Gloria<\/em> (despite the survival of an equally fine setting of the same text by the composer) following the post-war distribution of Casella\u2019s 1941 edition.<\/p>\n The Gloria\u2019s<\/em> international reach was extended with help from conductor Andr\u00e9 Jouve\u2019s pioneering recording, made in Paris in 1954, and David Willcocks\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> best-selling album, set down in the chapel of Choir of King\u2019s College, Cambridge in 1966, before finding favour with period-instrument performers in search of bankable record releases.<\/p>\nWhen, and for whom, did Vivaldi compose the Gloria?<\/h2>\n
What sort of music is Vivaldi\u2019s Gloria<\/em>?<\/h2>\n