The interior of an Orthodox parish church in the evening: a carved wooden iconostasis with gilded icons, the Royal Doors open to the altar, and beeswax candles burning in a brass stand

Pr. Laurent Cleenewerck de Kiev

Music From the House of Vivaldi

Sacred concertos after Vivaldi, and French poetry set to song.

Father Laurent has written and recorded music since he was a teenager, and has written, recorded, and remastered about a hundred songs. His newest releases, issued under the workshop name Francesco di Vivaldi, give the most familiar music of the Baroque back to a sacred subject. Antonio Vivaldi was himself a priest, ordained in Venice in 1703 and remembered as the Red Priest, and he wrote a Gloria, a Stabat Mater, and other sacred works in the same hand as the Four Seasons. The name Francesco di Vivaldi means “of the house of Vivaldi,” not Vivaldi himself.

The Vivaldi Project

Both albums were released in September 2026. Press play below to listen.

Album cover of I Quattro Vangeli, The Four Gospels: an illuminated painting of the four evangelists writing among blue mountains
I Quattro Vangeli · The Four Gospels Four concertos for violin, strings, and continuo, with treble voices, built on the plan of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons without borrowing a bar of his music. Matthew takes Spring, Mark Summer, Luke Autumn, and John Winter, and a choral coda for Pentecost closes the cycle.
Album cover of I Dodici Apostoli, The Twelve Apostles: Giotto’s fresco of the arrest of Christ, crowded with torches and spears
I Dodici Apostoli · The Twelve Apostles Twelve portraits for solo cello or viola with strings, one for each of the Twelve, and a thirteenth for Matthias. Nothing is sung. Where the Gospels say little about an apostle, the music says little too. The melodies come from his own earlier songs, so the set is easy to follow for listeners new to classical music.

French Poetry in Song

Father Laurent has set favorite poems of Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud to melodies; his wife, Irene, wrote the melodies for several of them. The albums are De Musset à Sardou (2021), De Verlaine à Rimbaud (2024), and Poèmes en Muse et Musique (2026). Here is Alfred de Musset’s poem “L’Espoir en Dieu” (Hope in God).

De Verlaine à Rimbaud

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