Nisi Dominus, RV608, is Vivaldi’s most extended and artistically ambitious Psalm setting for solo voice to have survived. It certainly dates from his ‘first’ period, but no one has yet established whether or not it was written for the Pietà. It survives in Turin not as an autograph score but as a set of parts copied out by the composer himself, his father and other hands.
The nine movements are as varied in style and scoring as one could imagine.
