This Sunday's playlist, is a live-recording of a performance of Vivaldi's Gloria in D RV589 by the Thomanerchor (St Thomas Choir) Leipzig, conducted by Georg Christoph Biller given as the opening concert for the Leipzig 2011 Bach Festival . It's glorious. Wonderful orchestral accompaniment, the choir is in great form while the soprano soloists Paul Bernewitz (aged 13) and Luis-Leonard Fischer (aged 12) sing superbly as does Stefan Kahle (alto) all under the baton of Thomanchor's Kantor Georg Christoph Biller whose conducting brings this choir to new heights. Really I could babble for hours about the quality of the performance and the conducting but I don't want to put you off.
Vivaldi probably composed his Gloria in D RV589 in 1715 for the girls' choir of the Ospedale della Pietà a Venetian orphanage for girls. When I wrote about "Laudamus Te" back on July 31st 2011 I commented that the Vivaldi's composition "gives us an idea of how skillful the young singers at the Ospedale della Pietà girls orphanage in Venice for whom Vivaldi wrote the piece must have been". Vivaldi who spent most of his career at the Ospedale and composed vast quantities of choral and instrumental music for its charges was surely well aware of the pride it took in the musical education the Ospedale della Pietà gave the girls under its care and the quality of its orchestra and choir.
Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...
