This new recording in the Edition Vivaldi series - the first of two volumes dedicated to Vivaldi’s cantate da camera for soprano - displays the energetic vitality with which a new generation of artists in their thirties is encountering the baroque repertoire.

This sixty-eighth album of the Edition highlights the expressively powerful voice of the soloist, soprano Arianna Vendittelli, already heard in the operas Il Tamerlano (2020) and Il Giustino (2018) conducted by Ottavio Dantone, as well as the artistic vision and high standards of the harpsichordist, organist and conductor Andrea Buccarella, who in 2018 carried off the first prize at the Bruges International Early Music Competition with his Abchordis Ensemble.

In these six cantatas - of around thirty attributed to the Venetian master and composed between 1718 and the mid- 1730s - these artists display their enhanced vocal and instrumental artistry, and a profound understanding of Vivaldi’s scores.  No subtlety escapes these artists in their interpretation of this secular vocal genre, so fashionable during the 18th Century, and still being rediscovered today, with its alternating arias and recitatives. Love is the main subject, love in all its guises, demanding a wide expressive range, from the melancholy register of “Ti confide il pianto moi” (RV 652) to the tormented passion of “Perché saettarmi” (RV 650), via the two lighter arias of Tra l’erbe i zeffiri (RV 669), and the strikingly dramatic Sorge vermiglia in ciel la bella Aurora (RV 667) with its aria di furore, “Ardi svena, impiaga, atterra”.

Exuberantly joyous vocal virtuosity, mastery of the instrumental ensemble, ever-changing colours, rhythmic inventiveness and the playfully diverse timbre of the continuo: everything combines to make this set of vivid, brief tableaux seem like miniature operas: they must surely count among Vivaldi’s most beautiful theatrical works.