Critic’s Choice

By David Fleshler

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

For many listeners, the legacy of Antonio Vivaldi comes down to a single work.

But the author of The Four Seasons produced a huge number of other compositions, most of them forgotten. Like Bach and Haydn, two other examples of the composer as working stiff, he was required to churn out a vast amount of music for his employer.

For much of his career, this was the famous Venetian girls’ orphanage Ospedale della Pietà. His compositions for the orphanage’s renowned corps of singers and instrumentalists will be the focus of the next series of concerts across South Florida by Seraphic Fire.

The program consists of devotional settings of Latin texts, such as the Credo, Nisi Dominus and the largest work on the program, his Magnificat. In these works, the composer of the bright tunes, instrumental thunder and virtuoso violin passages of The Four Seasons creates music of somber devotion, ethereal harmonies and stern power. The harmonies are often adventurous, and there are demanding vocal solos that indicate a high level of virtuosity at the Ospedale.

Performances of “Vivaldi and the Pieta” will take place 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church  in Boca Raton; 7 p.m. Thursday at Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church  in Naples; 7:30 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church of Coral Gables; and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale. SeraphicFire.org.

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Tue Feb 12, 2019
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