Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi, St John’s Smith Square, review: a fascinating revival of the Pietà girls

A choir which includes and gives solo slots to both fine singers and others of more modest accomplishments

Barry Millington18 May 2015

For a good deal of his career Vivaldi was associated with the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice.

The Pietà offered the foundling girls who were its charges an excellent musical education and it was Vivaldi’s job to teach and write for them. The modern-day Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi — in spite of its name an English choir — aims to recreate the sound of the Pietà girls, complete with female tenors and basses, as in Vivaldi’s day.

As we heard in this programme of music by Vivaldi and Porpora, whose attractive Laetatus Sum was also written for the Pietà, the choir includes and gives solo slots to both fine singers and others of more modest accomplishments. In that respect, it doubtless reflects the composition of the Pietà and this indeed proved a fascinating opportunity to experience something akin to the vocal soundworld Vivaldi might have been familiar with (even the talented Pietà girls could hardly have come near the excellent OAE under Kati Debretzeni).

From my seat the two basses and four tenors (in a choir of 24) could not always be heard; listeners to the live Radio 3 broadcast (available on the iPlayer) may have fared better.

The concert neatly fitted the Women in Baroque Music theme of the London Festival of Baroque Music, which has arisen from the ashes of the Lufthansa Festival.