Vivaldi - Soprano Motets and Cantatas torrent

Vivaldi cantatas:

In the opening to his book-length study of the thirty-seven existing Vivaldi cantatas, Michael Talbot reminds us rightly that these pieces are the "least researched, least discussed, least performed, least familiar" in the composer's compositional output. For a composer who has experienced both a tremendous popular modern revival and whose instrumental music influenced contemporary composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, his vocal works (cantatas, serenatas, sacred concertos) have been given surprisingly little attention by music historians.

Sources of Vivaldi's cantatas are relatively few in number, originating either in the original contents of the composer's personal archive (autographs and supervised copies) or in copies derived from this archive. From this Talbot infers that ‘once delivered to their first destination, Vivaldi's cantatas were performed only once, or, if repeated, remained within the same locality’. He surmises that between Vivaldi's death in 1741 and the 1940s they were never heard.

Only since 2002 have all 37 authentic cantatas been available in the Nuova Edizione Critica. Vivaldi's output is relatively slender; if we consider the output of three of his contemporaries—620 cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, 295 by Giovanni Bononcini, and 378 by Benedetto Marcello—we start to appreciate the extent of our ignorance.