Around the 1720s Vivaldi composed a single-movement setting of the Lauda, Jerusalem for two cori, each with a solo soprano, a four-part choir and strings. The psalm is proper for Sundays, including Easter Sunday. At some later stage – perhaps in 1739 when he was commissioned to supply new works to the Pietà – he penned on the manuscript the names of its four choirgirls, two to a part, but it is uncertain whether he carried through the plan to submit it. The Lauda, Jerusalem reveals the enormous influence which Vivaldi’s concertos had on his church music since it observes the principles of ritornello form quite strictly, alternating fully scored and lightly scored sections, and inserting freely conceived episodes between passages based on recurrent material (ritornellos). Vivaldi is at his most compelling when he arrives at the Doxology, whose subject is based on that of another Lauda, Jerusalem, by an unknown composer, in his collection.

from notes by Michael Talbot © 1994