le 4 Stagioni

As Concerto Italiano and its harpsichordist/director Rinaldo Alessandrini are gradually becoming the most recruited ensemble in Opus 111’s ambitious ongoing Vivaldi cycle, it apparently was only a matter of time before they got their chance at Le Quattro Stagioni (regardless of Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante’s excellent and still-available first recording for the same label). And as we would expect from their superb previous Vivaldi recordings, it’s a great one, characterized by remarkably crisp articulation, expert ensemble, and meticulous attention to detail.

The program begins with the most famous Vivaldi work of all, programmatic or not, the four violin concertos known as Le Quattro Stagioni or the Four Seasons. The rest of the music is much rarer.

Among countless interpretations of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which range from modernized performances for large string orchestra to period-style versions for much leaner ensembles, there are few as pared-down as Rachel Podger's performances with Brecon Baroque. Podger plays the virtuosic solo violin part and directs an ensemble consisting of two violins, one viola, and one cello, supported by a continuo of violone, theorbo, and harpsichord or chamber organ. This might give an impression of extreme austerity or thinness of sound, but the surprising richness of the group's textures suggests that tonal production counts more than the number of players.

On the current CD issue you can hear just how superbly Carmirelli plays the most difficult passages, and how glowing a sound stage the engineers captured at the recording site. The fullness of so many Stradivarius string instruments creates a lavish outpouring of tones, an embarrasment of riches which quite overwhelms one.

Christopher Hogwood was one of the first pioneers to introduce historically informed performances in England in the 70', following Nikolaus Harnoncourt's revolution that took place in the late 50'. With the Academy of Ancient Music, he published hundreds of fine recordings from different composers, with a special focus on Vivaldi. Here he presents the famous Four Seasons. I find Hogwood's lecture of the 4 Seasons perfect.

Violinist Giuliano Carmignola and the Venice Baroque Orchestra use a slightly different scoring of Vivaldi's masterpiece, the 1996 Ricordi critical edition, and somehow unveil world premieres of three Vivaldi concertos. Their period-instrument performance of The Four Seasons is beautifully played and recorded. Andrea Marcon's conducting stretches the Adagio movements out, but the group makes up for lost time in some feverish Allegro sections.

In their original incarnation on LP, the sound of Trevor Pinnock and his English Consort's 1981 recording of Vivaldi's famous Four Seasons was clear and bright. In subsequent CD iterations, it was clearer and brighter. But in this 2008 Japanese original bit processing issue, it has passed clearest and brightest and gone all the way to transparent and translucent. One can hear each of the 13 string players bows strike their strings and every pluck of Nigel North's theobro or Pinnock's harpsichord. And soloist Simon Standage sounds so vibrant and present that he may as well be in the room standing between the speakers.

Antonio Vivaldi's four concertos known as «The Seasons» from his collection Opus 8 are probably the most frequently performed, recorded as well as maltreated works from the Baroque period. A number of other composers employed Vivaldi's four masterpieces in their own compositions already during the composer’s lifetime. «Le Printemps ou les saisons amusantes» are arrangements for popular instruments at the time such as the hurdy-gurdy or bagpipes.In 1766 Michel Corrette composed the psalm Laudate Dominum de coelis by adding additional voices to the music of Spring and in 1775 Jean-Jacques Rousseau even published Spring in a transcription for flute solo!

No Baroque work is more familiar than Vivaldi's set of four programmatic violin concertos known as the Four Seasons, yet firebrand Italian violinist Fabio Biondi and his Europa Galante will make you feel as though you're hearing them for the first time in this recording, originally released on the Opus 111 label. Biondi's tempi are fast indeed in the outer movements, and he pushes some of Vivaldi's illustrative episodes into a realm of crescendi and descrescendi that's mighty unusual. And he ornaments the music freely. But his expressive devices are never Romantic – they come off as full-blooded, passionate responses to the music, and they never seem to violate the spirit.

This recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos is ad hoc in more ways than one. The only name listed on the cover is that of violinist Alexandra Conunova, who, in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, assembled a one-off group of players in Switzerland. There is no shortage of recordings of these concertos, but this one has an unusual feature: Conunova begins not with the Violin Concerto in E major, Op. 8, No. 1 ("Spring"), but in medias res with the "Fall" concerto. No explanation for this is given, although it does result in the placement of the "Summer" finale, arguably the movement that Vivaldi's audiences would have found the most striking, as the final climax of the whole set. Conunova has been touted as a talent to watch, and those interested in her developing career may find this bold release of interest.