Academy of St. Martin in The Fields Vivaldi

It would be no exaggeration to name Antonio Vivaldi as the “pioneer of the bassoon concerto”. The first milestone in the emancipation of the bassoon, until the beginning of the 17 century exclusively used as a basso continuo instrument, for which the part wasn’t even written out, was a series of nine virtuoso bassoon sonatas published by Giovanni Antonio Bertoli in 1645.

One of the early pioneers of the Baroque movement, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields has been a leading ensemble in early music for more than half a century. They are one of the most recorded chamber orchestras of the industry, mostly under the baton of the legendary Sir Neville Marriner. This collection of their Vivaldi realisations includes the very popular version of the Gloria with Barbara Hendricks, and concertos with soloists Christopher Parkening, Maurice André, and Iona Brown.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields was founded in 1959 by Sir Neville Marriner and a group of London’s leading orchestral players. Originally formed as a small conductorless string group, it spearheaded the 1950’s Baroque revival.

Violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis are joined by two acclaimed musical forces - pianist Jeremy Denk and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, of which Bell is Music Director – in a landmark joint recording, For the Love of Brahms (Sony Classical). Available September 30, 2016, the new album is a unique project that features works of Brahms and Schumann that Bell calls “music about love and friendship.” Bell, Isserlis and Denk unite here in Brahms’s first published chamber work, the Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 in its rarely performed original 1854 version. Isserlis also joins Bell – as violin soloist and director – and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Brahms’s last orchestral work, the celebrated Double Concerto (for Violin and Cello) in A Minor, Op. 102. Bell, Isserlis and members of the Academy also offer the first recording of an unusual coupling: the slow movement of Schumann’s rarely heard Violin Concerto, in a version for string orchestra made by Benjamin Britten, who also added a short coda.

Iona Brown, violinist and sometime conductor of the Academy of St. Martin and the fields, clearly understood how different Telemann was from other baroque composers - and what was needed to really bring out his special qualities. Unlike J.S. Bach and Handel, who were keyboard virtuosi, Telemann, who had unusual interest in and an especially keen ear for instrumental sonorities, spent his early years (secretly) learning to play all the instruments available in his time. Despite his prodigious musical gifts, his upper middle class family did not want him pursuing what was then the low occupation of musician.

The 12 violin concertos which make up La cetra were published in Amsterdam in 1727 as Vivaldi's Op. 9. They were not his last published ones, although La cetra ("The lyre") was the composer's last great set, each and every one of its contents representative of his mature instrumental style. The soloist in this reissued recording is Iona Brown, who is joined by Malcolm Latchem in the one and only concerto for two violins (No. 9). Brown shapes her phrases elegantly and is lucid in her articulation; and she favours moderate tempos which, though sometimes erring on the slow side, are usually effective. T

Denmark's Michala Petri has continued to dominate the modest but persistent recorder "scene" despite the emergence of a host of younger recorder players from the ranks of Dutch-trained historical-instrument specialists. Collecting a group of her 1970s and 1980s recordings, as has been done here, is an eminently justifiable enterprise, for it was these recordings whose laserlike intonation, whip-smart ornamentation, and all-around attractiveness that caught the attention of listeners in the first place. Petri uncovered and recorded a good deal of Baroque repertory for the instruments, recording it with the likes of England's Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

When these recordings first came out, far in advance of the period instrument revolution, they were revelations. Though modern instruments were used, there was an effort to get performance practices right… And there was the incredibly powerful, absolutely heavenly sound of that chorus of men and boys, as well as the lifelike recordings that perfectly captured the vast space of the Chapel of King's College. Since that time there have been other performances that depict the letter of each work to a greater degree than these, but many listeners will argue that there are none that have better encapsulated the spirit of this music… These are star-studded "great singing" recordings in which the artists will be remembered as much as the music itself.