Motet for soprano, strings and basso continuo, RV 811

“Edizione critica delle Opere di Antonio Vivaldi”

Ricordi, Milan, 2009

The motet Vos invito, barbarae faces, RV 811, for soprano, strings and basso continuo is the fi rst composition of this kind by Vivaldi to have been discovered since Vos aurae per montes, RV 623, in the 1960s. Like the second-mentioned work, RV 811 is preserved in the library of the Sacro Convento di S. Francesco, Assisi, but unlike it, the manuscript does not bear the name of its composer. It came to light when two researchers, Valerio Losito and Renato Criscuolo, who were browsing the Assisi collection in the hope of turning up discoveries, recognized the unmistakable stylistic imprint of Vivaldi and notified the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi. The origin of the motet is uncertain, but there is a good possibility that its original destination, like that of RV 623, was the Basilica del Santo in Padua, with which, as a sister house of the Franciscan order, the Sacro Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi is VARIOUS AUTHORS 31 known to have conducted exchanges and loans of music. Vos invito, barbarae faces is evidently an early work (from c. 1715 or even earlier) and has the conventional structure of Aria–Recitative–Aria–Alleluia. It is an attractive composition that is a fortunate addition to the Vivaldian canon.