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.It's definitely odd hearing the Gloria sung this way; the voice parts cross, and the work's big soprano lines seem crowded. Still, the performance, which is interspersed with pieces of Gregorian chant, represents an interesting historical exercise. And the Magnificat, with more passages of homophonic texture, and some of the disc's single-movement pieces work much better. (Of course it's possible that Vivaldi devised different transposition solutions for different works.) The Taverner Choir adopts an airy tone that can easily enough be imagined to be that of a group of teenage girls. The same can't be said of the four soloists, mature singers whose sound contrasts sharply with that of the choir. Youthful, light-voiced singers would have been a better fit for Parrott's concept. Let the buyer sample and beware, but this is one Vivaldi Gloria that certainly stands out from the huge crowd of recordings of the work.© TiVo

The small British chorus called the Sixteen and director Harry Christophers have delivered consistently popular recordings of Renaissance and Baroque music, maintaining very high standards of performance. Here they couple two of the most popular Baroque works of all, Vivaldi's Gloria in D major, RV 589, and Bach's Magnificat in D major, BWV 243, and the results are handsome indeed. The tenor of the performances flows from the conceptions of each work that Christophers expresses in one of the little personal essays that appears at the beginning of each booklet in this series: Vivaldi, he said, is "effective," and even operates in places here "at his simplest," while Bach is "complex." Some would use other words first, for each composer -- daring or kinetic for Vivaldi, devotional or a dozen other words for Bach. There are recordings that give Vivaldi in general and the Gloria in particular more of an edge; there are recordings of Bach that seem warmer, or more rooted in the sacred texts. But here, as usual, Christophers, the Sixteen, and the Symphony of Harmony & Invention Baroque orchestra play it straight up the middle and create accessible, appealing recordings using historical instruments. The Magnificat is really superior in the choral sections, with superb articulation of Bach's difficult interlocking runs of sixteenth notes; the building energy of the final three choruses is marvelously rendered, and the opening "Magnificat" is expansive and rich. The Vivaldi is sunny rather than triumphal, with the choir a bit reined in and rounded in tone in the famous opening "Gloria," but all the solos are top-notch, with the "Laudamus te" soprano duet of Lynda Russell and Gillian Fisher an especially lilting standout. The listener has many choices when it comes to recordings of these works, but it's hard to imagine these, the Bach especially, being substantially outdone.© TiVo

This is the third recording to represent Giulio Prandi’s interpretative research on the great Italian choral repertory, after the special and successful releases of works by Jommelli and Pergolesi, cornerstones of the golden age of the Neapolitan school. Faced with the challenge posed by Rossini’s essential masterpiece, Prandi has chosen an original and courageous path, following deep reflection. The new critical edition of the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro is used here for the first time for a recording; three rare instruments roughly contemporary with the work – pianos by  rard and Pleyel, a D bain harmonium – have been selected to ensure an authentic, vital, luminous sound, guaranteed by the artistry of the keyboardist and professor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Francesco Corti; four illustrious soloists have been engaged: Sandrine Piau, José Maria Lo Monaco, Edgardo Rocha and Christian Senn. © Arcana

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English soprano Grace Davidson is a member of The Sixteen who has also appeared on film soundtrack recordings. Here she makes her solo orchestral debut with a logical program bound together by the fact that all the music is extremely virtuosic, and on top of that little-known. Particularly interesting is the Gloria, HWV deest, of Handel; the only reason this counterpart to Vivaldi's famed Gloria, RV 589, is not better known is that it was rediscovered only in 2001. Start your sampling with its opening movement to hear both the recording's strengths and its more questionable aspects. In the former column is the engineering, getting a nice, bright clarity from the All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London. And likewise the music, so redolent of the competitive vocal atmosphere in which both Handel and Vivaldi worked. The venerable Academy of Ancient Music under Joseph Crouch is a good fit for Davidson here with its light, restrained affect. And it is easy to imagine Davidson in the small chapels for which several of these works were probably composed. Which brings you to the issue you'll have to evaluate for yourself: Davidson is a chamber-sized soprano, and it's easy to imagine these works sung with more power. In the Handel Gloria, note how she takes the runs precisely, blooming into vibrato only on longer notes. It's a chamber cantata sound in music that's a bit operatic, although sacred, and it may or may not ring your bell. In either case, the album is worth your time and money for bringing these neglected vocal works out of the shadows.© TiVo