Vivaldi Opus 4

Today we know that the reason for this penetration of Italian musical tastes into the small principality of Weimar lay elsewhere: the passion of the young prince Johann Ernst of Saxony for the Venetian concertos (and those of Vivaldi in particular). During the prince’s long period of study in Amsterdam, he had occasion to enjoy the exhibitions on the organ in the local Nieuwe Kerk by the blind virtuoso Jan Jacob de Graaf.

A long time ago, back in the 1970s, period instrument performances mostly sounded sweet and low down. Part of the reason for this was the catgut strings and the lower tuning, and part of the reason was that players seemed to prefer a mellower and rounder tone. But time passed and period instrument performances became more and more strident until they became nearly painful to listen to by the late '80s. Violinist Rachel Podger has recaptured the mellow sounds of yesterday by producing a warm and almost human sound with her 1739 Persarinius instrument.

After recording Vivaldi's set of Violin Concertos 'La Stravaganza', Opus 4, in 2003, Rachel Podger has been immersed in music by Mozart and Bach on disc. But it has now felt right to come back to the Venetian Maestro, whose sense of drama she adores: “This time I chose his opus 9, the set of 12 Violin concertos entitled 'La Cetra'. There are plenty of jewels in this set, just as in 'La Stravaganza', with even higher technical demands made on the soloist including many, often exotic experimental effects.”

The playing of Adrian Chandler and his crack period-instrument band La Serenissima emulates the title of their eighth release for Avie, mining the treasures of Vivaldi’s vast output. Who are these Gods, Emperors and Angels in the title of the latest virtuoso vehicle for Adrian Chandler and his dazzling period-instrument band La Serenissima? Vivaldi was connected to many Highnesses on the European continent, foremost among them the widely cultured Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV to whom Vivaldi dedicated his set of concertos titled La Cetra, meaning “The Lyre,” hence likening the emperor to the lyre playing god Apollo.

For all the charges of unacceptable schematicism levelled at Vivaldi and his kind, Monica Huggett, as supremely imaginative as well as technically and stylistically accomplished an exponent of the baroque violin as any, demonstrates clearly that this music benefits from the guiding hand of a charismatic interpreter: her delivery of Vivaldi’s exuberant, even manic, inspiration is never less than involving and, in the slow movements, never less than touching.

The four concerti in The Four Seasons of Antonio Vivaldi have probably earned the distinction of being the most frequently recorded classical works in the digital era. Originally published as part of a set of 12 concerti as Vivaldi's Opus 8, the other eight concerti also get some attention, particularly La tempesta di mare, but the set as a whole is comparatively seldom recorded. In Europa Galante's Virgin Classics release, Vivaldi: Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, violinist Fabio Biondi, who has recorded The Four Seasons at least once before for Opus 111, leads his expert ensemble in the whole of the Opus 8 set.

Federico Guglielmo whittles down his ensemble L’Arte dell’Arco to just three or four players for his latest release of Vivaldi’s music. Unlike other Vivaldi performers, Guglielmo is keen to return to the transparency of the Prete Rosso’s music, stripping away the ornate embellishments that have encumbered recent recordings, allowing the fluid lines to speak for themselves. In these Violin and Trio Sonatas, Guglielmo and his fellow musicians once again establish themselves as some of the foremost interpreters of the Italian’s music. For the most part bright and jolly, these sonatas demand to be played with charm and joie de vivre, which L’Arte dell’Arco certainly supply in abundance.