Nothing on the exterior packaging of this disc of
Vivaldi choral works gives the potential buyer a clue as to the unusual quality of the performances of the celebrated Gloria, RV 589, the Magnificat, RV 610b, and other choral works contained therein. Conductor
Andrew Parrott and his
Taverner Choir and players set themselves the task of answering a puzzling question: given that these works were likely written for
Vivaldi's all-girl choir at the Ospedale della Pietà, the orphanage where he served as music director, how were the tenor and bass parts performed? The girls were segregated from males, except for
Vivaldi himself. The disc represents an attempt at an "authentic" reproduction of how the Ospedale choir sounded to its celebrated visitors, including the oversexed
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who apparently talked his way past the iron grillwork that separated the singers from the audience and wrote that he "felt a shiver of love such as I had never felt before."
Rousseau and numerous other observers wrote about
Vivaldi's choir, and none ever mentioned hearing women sing in unusually low voices.
Parrott reasons, therefore, that the tenor and bass parts were transposed up an octave, resulting in a texture with two soprano and two alto parts, and that the usual SATB version was intended for sales to performers at other venues.