Gloria in D Major

While simplicity is key to Vivaldi’s evergreen Gloria, the complex layers of emotion that run through the work’s 12 parts lift it high above the ordinary. Its score, most likely written for the orphan girls of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice between 1713 and 1717, vanished for over three centuries. It was rediscovered and performed in Italy in the late 1930s and became a popular hit after World War II. Vivaldi probably composed the Gloria for his talented Pietà pupils but chose to notate its choral parts for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, no doubt mindful of its appeal to mixed choirs. The piece opens with a no-nonsense celebration of God’s glory, propelled by a leaping trumpet riff and underlined by solid choral chords, mantra-like in their intensity. Dissonances and long contrapuntal melodies mark the second movement’s exquisite choral prayer for peace. Vivaldi, both an ordained priest and a man of the theatre, complements the drama of the Gloria, one of the fixed texts of the Latin Mass, by ringing the changes of solo voices, choir and instruments and varying the mood of each movement. “Domine Deus, Agnus Dei” (“Lord God, Lamb of God”) gives voice to an impassioned plea for mercy, expressed by solo alto with cello accompaniment and spine-tingling choral outbursts, before music from the opening movement prefaces a rousing final fugue in honour of the Holy Spirit.