Apollo

The Cleveland-based baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, with their founder/ director Jeannette Sorrell, has made an indelible impression on the international music market since launching on Avie with recordings of Bach, Mozart and Monteverdi. Vivaldi and Friends is a presentation of concertos by the Red Priest with a twist: two authentic Vivaldi Concertos – one for four violins, the other for two cellos – are interspersed with J. S. Bach’s transcript ion of Vivaldi’s A minor concerto for four harpsichords, and Jeannette Sorrell’s own transcription of ‘Summer’ from the ever-popular Four Seasons. Sorrell’s arrangement mirrors the widespread baroque practice of transcribing violin works for keyboard. In her unique version, she performs the original violin parts on the harpsichord.

In 1996, Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra that she founded, made a very fine recording of Messiah, but this 2010 album surpasses it in every way. Sorrell's treatment of the slow opening of the Sinfonia tips her hand about what her approach will be to the oratorio as a whole. Rather than playing the rhythm dotted, as written (ponderous) or double dotted, as it's usually interpreted by early music specialists (rigid and severe), she splits the difference and plays it as a triplet, which gives it a lovely dancing lilt. It's indicative of the exceptionally light touch and punchy rhythmic vitality she employs throughout.

Apollo's Fire's founder and director Jeannette Sorrell is "a masterful musical storyteller" (Seen and Heard). The Maestra and her acclaimed baroque orchestra add to their distinguished AVIE discography that includes Handel's Dixit Dominus and Messiah, with her own adaptation of the composer's oratorio Israel in Egypt.