FRSO & Fabio Biondi

Dresden in the 1710s got caught up in a veritable Vivaldi cult. The reason lay with the official court concertmaster Johann Pisendel, who gave his orchestra music by his teacher, Antonio Vivaldi, to play. The latter in turn specifically wrote his great Dresden Concertos for Pisendel’s large orchestra. The uncrowned king of opera was a composer who only turned to the genre in later life, Jean-Philipp Rameau. His opera Les Boréades based on a mythological subject tells a love story with a happy ending.