Today in 1737, Antonio Montanari died in Rome. Within hours, every musician in the city had turned up to his funeral. Twelve torches. A solemn mass sung by the whole profession. Not bad for a composer almost nobody has heard of.

This is how Good Friday should sound. On Good Friday in 1724, Bach unveiled a Passion that still feels astonishingly direct 302 years later. No gentle opening. No easing in. The St John Passion begins with force, tension, and urgency, and never really loosens its grip.

Vivaldi season is upon us. No, not that Vivaldi. Well. Maybe that one too (especially if you've joined our new Patreon 😉) But right now we're talking about the potato variety: second early, RHS Award of Garden Merit winner and absolutely worth getting in the ground this spring.

"Flute Concerto in a RV 440" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler, soloist Katy Bircher, flute / @avierecords.bsky.social

"Violin Concerto "Alla Rustica" in G RV 151" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler / @avierecords.bsky.social sp. 2371

"To the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds dance beneath the green brilliant mantle of spring.” Vivaldi's final word on Spring. Pure joy, open fifths, and bagpipes written into the music. This is what's waiting for you on our Patreon.

Three hundred years ago, a Leipzig choir sang these words for the first time on Good Friday. This April, you can hear them in one of England's most breathtaking cathedrals. Join us for an unmissable performance under the soaring vaults of Gloucester Cathedral.

Some of you didn't hang about! 🎉 A huge thank you to everyone who has already joined our Patreon. Your support means we can share more music with people who aren't able to come to our concerts, for whatever reason. If you haven't signed up yet, here's a little flavour of the kind of insight...

Here's Ade reading his translation of Vivaldi's Spring sonnet. If you want to know more about the music that goes with it, head over to our Patreon and sign up now: www.patreon.com/cw/LaSerenis... #Vivaldi #LaSerenissima #TheFourSeasons #LaPrimavera #EarlyMusic

We know not everyone can get to our concerts. So we're bringing them to you. 🙌 Spring represents new life and fresh starts, so we're celebrating by launching over on Patreon.

We know not everyone can get to our concerts. So we're bringing them to you. 🙌 Spring represents new life and fresh starts, so we're celebrating by launching over on Patreon.

One of the most persistently intriguing details of Vivaldi's Spring is in the second movement where the viola manuscript is marked "the barking dog." It is a moment of most playful literalism.

What do faces made of fruit and foliage have to do with Vivaldi?! We're not telling. Yet. What we will tell you is that La Serenissima launches on Patreon on 20th March, and this is exactly the kind of thing we'll be getting into.

"Now, upon the pleasant flowery meadow beneath the rustling of the leafy canopy a goatherd sleeps, his dog at his side.” The second movement of La Primavera 🌷 A sleeping goatherd. A faithful dog. Vivaldi at his most deceptively still.

"Spring has arrived and joyously the birds welcome her return with happy song and brooks, caressed by soft airs murmur sweetly as they course along" The Four Seasons caused a considerable stir when it was first published in 1725.

The sonnets accompanying The Four Seasons are one of the most compelling examples of text and music working in absolute unity. Each line maps directly onto the score with remarkable precision. This is programme music at its most deliberate and sophisticated.

Vivaldi got around. So do our listeners, apparently. La Serenissima is now on Patreon so if you can’t make it to one of our UK concerts, you can enjoy a little more of the music from wherever you are 🥳 www.patreon.com/c/LaSereniss...

Spring is on the horizon, and we’re cooking up some new things here at La Serenissima 🍝 We’ll be sharing more details soon but, for now, enjoy Vivaldi’s Spring 🌷

We turned Vivaldi into James Bond and we'll do it again. Hear the actual music that started the theory performed live. Oxford · TONIGHT ONLY · Keble Early Music Festival 🎟 Link in bio: grab tickets before clearance is revoked.

We've loved immersing ourselves in this music, and tomorrow in Oxford we perform it live for the last time. This clip features the first movement of William Corbett's Concerto alla Fiorentina. His work took him across Europe in ways that were... not strictly musical. 25th Feb, 7:30 see you there?

RV 330, straight from Vivaldi’s quill 🪶 He really packs the notes into this concerto 😬 The autograph manuscript survives at the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino, and it’s on a different paper type to most of Vivaldi’s manuscripts.

You loved it. The album got five stars. Ready for some more?? Our new Crossing Borders programme explores the next chapter: composers who literally crossed borders (and some who may have been spies) If you loved the first recording, you'll love this live. Tix on our website

Wonderful to be back in the studio for a second day! Thank you so much to our all star team of musicians, Cedars Hall for having us and technological wizards Dave Rowell and Matt Bennett for capturing the magic.

One historical certainty we do have from this period is that Fourteen Vivaldi works can be traced to his 1730 travels through a single forensic detail: Bohemian manuscript paper. Six were violin concertos with wildly varying difficulty; suggesting they weren't written for just one performer.

In 1730, Vivaldi arrived in Vienna with his father to attend the premiere of his opera Argippo. This sounds unremarkable to modern ears but his father had taken a YEAR’S leave of absence from his job to accompany Vivaldi. Scholars still debate the purpose of this trip...

Unusually for his time, Vivaldi operated as a freelance musician. His only semi-permanent post was at Venice's Ospedale della Pietà with a brief stint in Mantua. This independence allowed him to travel operatic hubs across Italy and beyond, creating a career much like today's portfolio musicians.

So good to be back in London on Friday night! No torn tendons, no fire alarms... just an evening of glorious Vivaldi, Telemann, Corbett & Ariosti 🥰 If you heard some of those pieces for the first time, we'd love to know what you thought. LOTS of love for the Telemann at the end of the concert ❤️

"Violin Concerto "Alla Rustica" in G RV 151" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler / @avierecords.bsky.social sp. 2371

What a grand entrance… this is the Entrée 👀✨ Except it’s… not actually the entrance 😉 This is the second movement of Ouverture-Suite for strings & continuo in A, TWV 55:a5, by Georg Philipp Telemann. It genuinely feels like a red-carpet moment. Violins first, of course 🎻✨

"Per echo in lontano" - echo in the distance Vivaldi's instruction is clear. How to actually DO it? Less clear. Offstage musicians. Fast passages. Staccato in the slow movement. No eye contact. Adrian explains why this concerto is brilliant... and slightly terrifying!

"Concerto for 2 Oboes in a RV 536" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler, soloist Rachel Chaplin, oboe; Mark Baigent, oboe / @avierecords.bsky.social sp. 2392

Some never-before-recorded Telemann?! 🤯 If this Rondeau from his Ouverture-Suite for strings & continuo in A, TWV 55:a5, doesn’t get you up & dancing… then maybe the rest of the suite will 😉 We’ll be performing this (& more music you probably haven’t heard live before) at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Ever wondered why we call them the "Bohemian Concertos"? The answer involves mysterious travel, a father-son road trip, and paper forensics. Adrian explains... Catch the Bohemian Concertos live: 6th February at St Martin-in-the-Fields and 25th February at Keble Early Music Festival.

No, your ears aren’t playing tricks on you. Adrian plays a phrase, then a second soloist (the brilliant Oliver Cave 🙌) repeats it from offstage, creating an “echo” effect you can actually locate in the room.

We can neither confirm nor deny that Antonio Vivaldi was operating under deep cover during his 1729 Bohemian tour. What we CAN confirm: All evidence will be presented live in: Liverpool, 24 January, 6pm Liverpool London, 6 February, 7:30pm London Oxford, 25 February 7:30pm Oxford

Attilio Ariosti: Diplomat. Virtuoso. Composer. French spy in London? William Corbett: Composer. Traveler. Owner of suspiciously expensive violins. British agent tracking the Stuarts in Italy? Hear their music live in Liverpool: 24 January, 6-8pm Tickets: @thetungauditorium.bsky.social

Liverpool, your weekend soundtrack is sorting itself out 🎻🕵️ Next Friday night is The Traitors final, with its deliciously string-led classical soundtrack, including our main man Vivaldi. If that music has hooked you, come and hear it live, up close, and properly exhilarating.

What do baroque composers and international spies have in common? Join us in Liverpool, to hear it for the by Attilio Ariosti and William Corbett - two composers whose European travels may have enabled them to work undercover as spies. Sat 24 Jan @TheTungAuditorium 6pm

Tonight’s task is simple. 
Soon, a new composer will be joining our ranks. You’ve seen the evidence.
You’ve followed the trail.
You’ve clocked the theatre ticket. Now, look me in the eye and tell me your suspect.
 Faithful or Traitor? Leave your guess below. Choose wisely.

Shopping done and put away, off to Orient this afternoon for the inevitable defeat, and to Oto again to see Evan Parker, Alex von Schlippenbach, John Edwards, and Paal Nilssen-Love. Pretty marvellous last night. But NP...recorders, violins, bassoons, and strings from @laserenissimauk.bsky.social

If you’re here with us in the UK and bracing for a chilly rest of the week… same 🥶 To match the music, Vivaldi actually published a sonnet alongside Winter from The Four Seasons. It’s basically a tiny scene-by-scene guide to what you’re hearing. Two of these images are in the text, & one is not.

If you’re scrolling social media to distract yourself from Monday, here’s something better. A little Telemann from the harpsichord 😍 In our second instalment of Crossing Borders, we explore how musical styles travelled across 18th-century Europe, from Vivaldi’s virtuosic concertos to Telemann’s..

Buon Anno a tutti from all of us at La Serenissima 🍾 2025 is not a year we’ll forget in a hurry, for a few reasons 😆 Thank you for being with us through it, in the hall, on the radio, and in your headphones. We’ve got a lot to look forward to in 2026, and we hope to see you at a concert…

International Cello Day, featuring our wonderful cellists during our latest recording session: Vladimir Waltham and Carina Drury 📸 Right, important question of the day. What is the best Baroque cello piece of all time?

Buon Natale a tutti! Something about Baroque music and Christmas just fits; Vivaldi and Corelli both wrote fabulous Christmas Concerto. And Bach’s cantatas have obviously stood the test of time. These composers understood the season: darkness and light, stillness and joy, all woven together.

Every violinist knows you start with that Vivaldi. The A Minor. First movement only. But what happens when you fall in love with Vivaldi and go searching for more as a kid in Merseyside? Let me tell you how a library hunt turned into a lifelong relationship with a concerto. Vivaldi Op8 No7.

On 14 Dec 1725, Vivaldi’s Op. 8 was announced in Amsterdam. Which means it’s just turned 300! We’ve marked the occasion the La Serenissima way: by diving into the full set, from start to finish. It also happens to be our 30th anniversary, so the timing felt right 😏 youtu.be/kVQY19EB0L4?...

International Violin Day felt like a good excuse to introduce you properly to Adrian’s violin 🎻 Made by British luthier Rowland Ross in 1981, this violin is built after a historical Amati violin. The Amati family are violin royalty, up there with names like Stradivari and Guarneri 👑

Feeling a bit stuck for this year’s Secret Santa? Or still hunting for the big gift for your favourite Vivaldi fan? We’ve got you covered 🙌 Here’s our ultimate Vivaldi Gift Guide, and it’s not all La Serenissima CDs (although that is always an option…).