Scarlatti / Vivaldi

At the helm of Les Arts Florissants, William Christie offers a new reading of two masterpieces of Italian sacred music: Scarlatti's Messa di Santa Cecilia and Vivaldi's Magnificat.

In 1720, at the age of sixty, Alessandro Scarlatti composed the Mass for Saint Cecilia in Rome. Considered to be the crowning achievement of all his church music, this piece provides a stylistic synthesis of the compositional possibilities of the early 18th century, in a score brimming with striking contrasts. In the same years, in Venice, Antonio Vivaldi composed his famous Magnificat for the virtuoso women musicians of the Ospedale de la Pietà, of which he was in charge. Over a period of more than twenty years, he painstakingly reworked this score into the jewel of sacred music we know today - and which, for this concert, offers a brilliant Venetian counterpart to Scarlatti's Roman Mass.

William Christie has conducted the Magnificat many times, but this is his very first Messa di Santa Cecilia. For the occasion, he has gathered around him an international cast of young soloists, alongside the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants, all experts in this repertoire. A celebration of Baroque lustre, Italian-style!