Vivaldi and Pergolesi: Sacred Baroque

In the Baroque era, Italy produced stunning sacred choral music that lifts the soul and still resonates through the ages.

Iestyn Davies and Katherine Watson join us to perform the most exquisite examples.

Written just days before he died aged just 26, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater is beautiful and melancholic.

The most popular piece of its time, it was celebrated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as ‘the most perfect and most touching to have come from the pen of any musician’.

In contrast, Vivaldi’s Gloria is inspiring and celebratory.

Written for the all-female choir of a Venetian orphanage, it boasts an almost universally sunny sound-world and Vivaldi’s trademark invigorating melodies.