Vivaldi : Vêpres pour San Marco

Born in Venice in 1678, Antonio Vivaldi learned the violin from his father, who was appointed violinist at St Mark's Basilica in 1685. Little Antonio, a precocious pupil, was soon admitted to the Doge's Chapel with his father and made his first steps as an instrumentalist under the mosaics of the domes of St Mark's Basilica. This gave him the opportunity to become acquainted with the most sumptuous liturgy in Venice at an early age. Throughout his rich operatic career, and in parallel with his position as composer and conductor of the Ospedale della Pieta, Vivaldi composed a great deal of sacred music, whose destination is unknown: but the reputation of the Red Priest certainly carried his scores to San Marco...

He wrote several Motets for the Office of Vespers, one of the most important in Venice, and for which Monteverdi left the first musical masterpiece. Some of these works are traditionally bravura pieces, such as the Dixit Dominus and the Magnificat, in which Vivaldi deploys inventiveness, virtuosity and monumentality: their performers must have been the best in Venice. The organisation of the motets presented here reconstitutes a Vespers service as Vivaldi might have presented it in San Marco, for the feast of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice: the sumptuousness of Venetian ceremonies can be heard with force, in the echo of the vaults and domes of the basilica, and its precious marble and golden mosaics. Leonardo García Alarcón recaptures this flamboyance in an extraordinary reconstruction, whose festive dimension is in keeping with the Serenissima...

The Namur Chamber Choir and the Millénium Orchestra are supported by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (music and dance department), the National Lottery, the City and the Province of Namur. They also benefit from the Belgian Government's Tax Shelter and Insert Invest.