Archi

This is the 51st title in the Vivaldi Edition and the 6th volume, out of approximately 12, of the series dedicated to the violin concertos whose manuscripts are held in the National Library of Turin. Following two successful volumes of concertos for solo violin and orchestra recorded separately in the Vivaldi Edition, virtuosos Riccardo Minasi and Dmitry Sinkovsky now join forces to record pyrotechnic concertos for two violins and orchestra.

This CD features the strings of a conductorless Swedish chamber orchestra, Camerata Nordica, with the distinguished violinist Ulf Wallin sitting in the concertmaster's seat (and playing the solo violin part in the Adagio amoroso). They are capable of digging deeply into the strings in the dramatic sections but where they really shine are in the lyrical passages which they play with a silken sheen. The five works are more or less of a piece, all identifiably in Atterberg's post-Straussian high-Romantic style. The largest piece is the four movement 'Sinfonia per archi' ('Symphony for Strings') which is a recomposition of an earlier string quintet. In places it reminds me of Elgar's Serenade for Strings. I particularly like II, Allegro molto, with its insistent motto theme that modulates higher and higher as it unwinds.

Someone ought to get some t-shirts made that say "Vivaldi rocks!" At least that partly accounts for his popularity in the twenty first century; among the old masters, Antonio Vivaldi's sense of rhythmic dynamics and the gale-like force of many of his string concertos are close enough to the ever-enervating pulse of pop music that he has found an unlikely audience among younger listeners. Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra's disc Vivaldi: Concerti & Sinfonie per Archi delivers these very kinds of goods, and will prove pleasing to Vivaldi fanciers of the younger set.