Vivaldi's international renown came about largely as a result of his concertos, which were collated, and, of course performed, throughout the courts of Europe. Quite unlike the concertos, Vivaldi's voluminous output of sacred works was hardly known beyond the purlieus of their original performance. Following the composer's death they became increasingly unknown and even today it is difficult to say how many pieces of church music Vivaldi composed.

As few of Vivaldi’s church compositions can b...