Choral Christmas: Vivaldi’s Gloria

At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.

Vivaldi: Domini fili unigenite

This piece is the sixth movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria, and celebrates possibly the oddest video of this Choral Christmas. I honestly have no idea what is going on, or who is singing. I will have latin scholars up in arms, but the text roughly translates as Lord, your only begotten son Jesus Christ.

Composed with strong infusions of French stylings this short movement invokes in me both the majesty of the Trinity, but also in the context of the biblical story of Christ, a nod to what I might sacrilegiously call the final chapter. A reminder to God (whatever that means to you) that his son exists (if you believe that) only because of the actions of the father. Joyous but also foreboding.

The score can be downloaded from the website free sheet music.