Ten years and eleven discs after its triumphant inception, Robert King’s complete recording of Vivaldi’s sacred music reaches a worthy end. The Gloria, RV589 – this is the ‘famous’ one, beloved of choral societies the world over—provides a suitably ebullient opening to a recording which also includes the lyrical Ostro picta sublimely sung by Carolyn Sampson and the Gloria by Ruggieri—the work from which Vivaldi stole many of the best ideas for his own settings of the same text.

Of great significance also is the first recording of the newly discovered Nisi Dominus, RV803—Vivaldi’s ‘latest work’, as it were. Discovered in a Dresden library in 2003, this opulent setting is for three soloists, strings, continuo and five extraordinary solo instruments (including the fantastical ‘violino in tromba marina’—the eighteenth century’s equivalent of the modern ‘jazz violin’?). As a historical discovery, this new work is important; as the keystone of this final disc in a ground-breaking series, it is perfect.

All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set Vivaldi: The Complete Sacred Music: ‘King has given us the ultimate Vivaldi anthology, abundant in energy, rich with emotion, animation, and color, and enshrined in Hyperion's fabled, warm, and incomparable sound’ (Fanfare, USA).