Vivaldi joined the staff of the Ospedale della Pietà in September 1703 as Maestro di Violin. Established in the 14th century, the Pietà was one of four charitable Venetian orphanages for women supported by the state. Vivaldi’s instrumental chamber works cannot be dated with any certainty, nor do we know for whom they were written. Despite this lack of information, we can surmise he produced them for his pupils at the Pietà, perhaps during the late 1720s and 1730s.

Bach, Telemann and several French composers all explored the chamber concerto medium to a great degree. 18th-century Italian composers, who concentrated on opera, sacred and secular music for the voice, appear to have ignored it, with the exception of Vivaldi. Our modern image of Vivaldi is primarily that of a secular composer, yet much of his work was intended for performances in the church. The importance of sacred music for solo voice in the oeuvre of Vivaldi emerges with a bold statistic: of his fifty or so extant sacred vocal works, thirty are for solo voice.

These sacred pieces reflect the talents of the orphans at the Ospedale della Pietà, which maintained an all female choir and orchestra responsible for the music in its chapel. Despite its ability to perform choral music at a very high standard, the Pietà also laid special emphasis on works for solo voice.