Vivaldi's Women (Part one)

The documentary "Vivaldi's Women" on BBC Four presented the story of an extraordinary creative partnership between one of history's great composers -- Antonio Vivaldi -- and an all-female orchestra and choir. In the early 18th century, Father Antonio Vivaldi was a violin teacher, musical director, musical instrument procurer and in-house composer for a Venetian institution called La Pietà, a home for children who had been abandoned at birth.

The institution had its own all-female orchestra and choir who provided sacred "entertainment" in the church for the visiting "Grand Tourists". The unique creative relationship that Vivaldi formed with these women resulted in what many believe to be one of the finest performing groups of all time.

The documentary also reveals the personal stories of this unique community of female musicians and the full extent of Vivaldi's relationship with the institution.

During five days in November 2005 Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi, directed by Richard Vendome, recorded and filmed three different programmes for the BBC on location at La Pietà. The choir of 18 past and present members of Oxford Girls' Choir (aged 14-33), together with seven older ladies, replicated Vivaldi's choir in size, age and vocal range, the lowest voices can singing down to bottom F on the bass stave!

Antonio Vivaldi, as well as being a composer, worked at the Ospedale della Pietà for much of the first half of the 18th century. This was one of four such institutions in Venice - a home for abandoned and unwanted babies, often the children of prostitutes. The boys there were trained in stone cutting, weaving and shoe making, so they could leave at 16 with a skill for the future. The girls however, unless they got married or became nuns, stayed there for the rest of their lives.

It was Vivaldi's job to train those girls who showed musical promise (about one in ten) to sing and play instruments during services at La Pietà. Vivaldi wrote many of his works for this female musical establishment, and evidence suggests that all the vocal parts were sung by women, including tenor and bass.

In November 2005 we travelled to Venice with 17 female members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Jerwood Experience, led by brilliant young virtuoso Nadja Zwiener, to perform at the church of La Pietà, staying in the Casa per Ferie, close to where the orphans used to live. The boned corsets of the 18th century costumes were elegant if rather constraining, and we filmed the "Gloria" by candlelight behind the grills in the galleries looking down on the main body of the church.

In addition to filming the "Gloria" we spent a day recording and rehearsing Vivaldi's music for Easter Vespers for BBC Radio 3, which was broadcast on "The Choir" on Easter Day 2006. The programme was presented by Aled Jones and Catherine Bott; the producer for the BBC was Michael Surcombe and the sound engineer was Mike Hatch.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• vivaldi
• venezia
• micky white
• dixit dominus
• gloria
• ospedale della pieta
• schola pietatis
• barocco
• concerto
• oxford
• vivaldis women

[puterbuddy]

I have to agree; both their singing and pronunciation can be improved but I LOVE the idea of the work they're doing. I completely understand Micky White's obsession with Vivaldi!

[classicalcompo]

It is so great to have a documentary on Vivaldi and his wonderful choir of singers and musicians...

[EmilyGreene1984]

Sadly, quite often, women with low voices are, IMHO, misplaced into roles that rightly belong to countertenors (or in their day, the male castrati or male soprano roles). But for women, there are not alot of feminine low vocal parts available. Now while some women feel comfortable with performing trouser roles or being mistaken for sounding "masculine" - that doesn't speak for other women with low voices.

[EmilyGreene1984]

As a woman with a somewhat low voice, I must say that despite their natural low voices, some women are not comfortable performing too low, often because they DO have a harder time finding work and being taken seriously. In certain musical styles, like jazz or blues, a woman with a low voice can get away with singing low and still sounding (more or less) feminine - but in classical music and opera - there is simply not enough material written for lower voiced women.

[TXCrafts1]

WIN for the pigion at 5:34

[janiscortese]

I've got a good, clean c# below middle c, and I'm not even a trained singer.  You'd think some supposed voice "experts" have never heard of Aretha Franklin or Steve Perry the way they act about high-voiced men and low-voiced women. Voices don't come in pink and blue. These women rock!

[LeoInterHyenaem]

Thank you for this lovely documentary! And the makers, of course.

[HerrWarja]

Did Vivaldi not write tenor and bass in his sacred choral music?

[blindhunt3r]

Nice Lute :)