An account of wonder and reverence Paul Agnew (conductor)
Sophie Karthäuser (soprano), Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano); Les Arts Florissants Harmonia Mundi HAF 8905358
If played straight, as it appears on the page, Vivaldi’s Gloria can easily confirm stubborn prejudices about the predictability of his music. Paul Agnew’s interpretation with Les Arts Florissants is anything but; rather, their recording, released only this summer, reveals fresh inflections and engenders musical and textual interest in each of the work’s movements, so much so that it restores a sense of wonder, even reverence, to the piece. The latter rises from the context that Les Arts Florissants have created for it, framing the Gloria as part of a ‘Great Venetian Mass’. The speculative reconstruction addresses the perennial question of what to put with Vivaldi’s Gloria: Agnew’s answer is to place it with the composer’s Kyrie, RV587, the motet Ostro picta, armata spina, the Credo,
Paul Agnew turns what could readily pass as choral filler into dramatic vignettes
RV591, and other liturgical works by Vivaldi, reworded to provide the rest of the Mass Ordinary. The combination works a treat, although anyone familiar with the well-known Beatus vir, RV807 might be thrown by its use here for the Sanctus and Benedictus.
Agnew judges each movement of the Gloria in relation to its part in the whole. He flags Vivaldi’s rhetorical flourishes with myriad details of dynamic shading, shrewdly judged changes of pulse and tempos that feel just right, ideally realised by Les Arts Florissants’ eloquence and elan caught in clear and warm recorded sound. Their opening ‘Gloria’, sprightly yet never rushed, sounds like a genuine response to God’s glory, as if caught in the moment of fervent prayer; likewise the conclusion of ‘Et in terra pax’, made all the more arresting by unwavering choral intonation.
The interpretative ingredients that make this recording special are rooted in Agnew’s long experience as a singer. He encourages his choristers to shine in ‘Gratias agimus
tibi’ and ‘Qui tollis’, turning what can readily pass as choral filler into dramatic vignettes, complete with squeeze-box effects on the repeated ‘o’ of ‘gloriam tuam’. His soloists, soprano Sophie Karthäuser and mezzo Lucile Richardot, take their place as first among chamber-music equals, alive to the admirable work of Les Arts Florissants’ instrumentalists and the meaning of what they are singing. Richardot’s sophisticated account of ‘Domine Deus, Agnus Dei’ offers an object lesson in phrasing and the expressive use of consonants. In all, a recording that grows in stature with each repetition.