Re-creating the music Vivaldi wrote for the women of Venice

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Everyone who knows about Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) knows that he spent the major part of his career making music at the Ospidale della Pietà in Venice, an orphanage and convent that became famous for its music. The majority of Vivaldi's instrumental and sacred choral compositions were created to be performed at, and by the resident women of, the Ospidale.

The women of Ospidale achieved an extraordinarily high standard of performance. Their orchestra was large, and the soloists within it as fine as could be heard anywhere in Europe.

And the choir? Well, that brings up the interesting question of how the SATB choral works might have sounded, and in this BBC documentary film, an all-girl ensemble from Oxford, England, travelled to Venice to investigate — and to recreate — the music of Vivaldi and the Pietà.