Vivaldi’s Women is the latest recording from the critically-acclaimed ensemble La Serenissima. The album showcases Vivaldi’s compositions written for the women of the Ospedale della Pietà, a Venetian institution founded in about 1340 that cared for unwanted children, often illegitimate or physically disadvantaged. The Pietà’s performers were taken from a group of women (not normally girls, contrary to popular belief) known as the figlie di coro, who sang and played a great variety of string, keyboard, and wind instruments. The album includes a world-premiere recording of a newly-discovered concerto in F, and instruments invented by Vivaldi himself including the violin “in tromba marina,” a newly commissioned Italian viola d’amore (to a design by Stradivarius), and a chalumeau.
La Serenissima: Vivaldi’s Women
