Porpora's 1744 Vespro per la Festivita dell’Assunta was first performed in Venice at the Ospedaletto, one of four orphanages for girls that specialized in music to the extent that they were regarded as conservatories. The most famous of the four was the Pietà, where Vivaldi taught violin. Porpora's work consists of five psalms, a Magnificat and a Salve Regina. The music is conceived in the early Classical style as developed during the 1720s by Porpora and his rivals, Leonardo Vinci and Johann Adolph Hasse. The music is characterized by its ornate periodic melodies which later became exemplified in the church music of Mozart. In this transformation from fashionable opera composer to revered maestro di cappella and teacher, the Vespers of 1744 probably played a pivotal role, somewhat akin to Messiah or Samson in Handel's 'conversion' to oratorio. For several years now Le Parlement de Musique has pursued its investigation of the concertante repertoire of the Venetian ospedali.
