The work
ountless performances by choirs and an enormous crop of recordings testify to the enduring popularity of one of Antonio Vivaldi’s greatest hits. His Gloria in D major, RV589 is so deeply embedded in the choral repertory as to fall into the category of eternal fixtures, a billing that disguises its disappearance for almost two centuries after the composer’s death. This multi-movement setting of a key text from the Latin Mass was possibly written in 1713-17 – together with a now-lost Kyrie – for the residents of the Ospedale della Pietà, one of four charitable institutions for
