Porta: Selected Sacred Music

Giovanni Porta held the highest post in the music school at the Pietà, maestro di coro, from 1726–37, and his music was a regular feature at the church services. He is the earliest composer represented in the partbooks for whom adequate sources survive. The partbook collection from the Ospedale della Pietà, the "Fondo Esposi," now held at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice, Italy, is the working musical repertory used by the foundlings of the Pietà in the eighteenth century. The significance of music in the daily life at the Pietà gave the institution its designation as an "orphanage-conservatory," and much of its history is preserved in the music. The availability of Porta's music helps to define aspects of a distinctive style and musical tradition followed at the Pietà at the time of Vivaldi.

Laetatus in Due Chori

Primo Magnificat Piena

Michael Talbot, Music & Letters