Vivaldi's sacred works are nearly as compelling as his best concertos, and the motet "In turbato mare irato" combines typical operatic melismas, recitatives and Da Capo arias, as well as a challenging vocal range of two octaves. Composers of the baroque period (especially Handel) often used a number of compositional tricks to speed the process of churning out music, such as recycling large pieces of thematic material, or piling all of the instruments onto one part to avoid the complexity of full counterpoint. In turbato, in contrast, is composed with a four-part harmony throughout. The fully-allegorical text can be read as an odyssey towards spiritual or intellectual light, but the verses are suffused with secular sensuality, paralleling the Italian art and religious architecture of the same period.