Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra

Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra is the fanciful story of Candida, an orphan girl from the famed Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, Italy, whom the author imagines filling the role of copyist for Vivaldi’s compositions. Candida’s daydreams lead her to write lines of poetry, which Vivaldi then translates into his movements of Four Seasons. The story lacks a clear arc and beyond the tribute to the “invisible orchestra” of orphan girls who performed his works, there is not much of historical or musical value in the story. The pastel illustrations by Véronique Lefèvre Sweet pay tribute to the dreamy emphasis of the book.