Liszt Ference Chanber Orchestra Vivaldi

Vivaldi is greatly over-rated - a dull fellow who would compose the same form over many times. Such is the opinion of one of the great composers on the music of another great composer. Given the evidence of the present newly re-released complete Vivaldi cello concertos incredulity can be the only response to this assessment. But then Stravinsky was a man who voiced strong, often acerbic and sometimes outrageous opinions on virtually anything suggested to him. He had probably heard few, if any, of these cello concertos and irrespective would it have made any difference?

Michelle Barzel Ross is an Iraqi(Mizrahi)-American violinist, composer, and improviser. A protégé of Itzhak Perlman, Michelle is known for her debut album, pop-up project and blog Discovering Bach: Complete Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach. A gifted improviser across genres, Michelle is featured on Movement 11’ of the GRAMMY winning Best Album of the Year: We Are, by Jon Batiste. This season, Michelle has the honor of performing with the Juilliard String Quartet as guest first violinist for their winter International and US tours, while Areta Zhulla is on maternity leave.

“Citterio’s affinity for Vivaldi has become very clear in her short time with Tafelmusik. Her splendid playing always delights. Yet it is in her invitational style of leadership that she brings the orchestra to perform with precision, joy and sparkling musicality.” A landmark Tafelmusik recording, Vivaldi con amore is the orchestra’s first with Music Director Elisa Citterio. This all-Vivaldi album showcases Citterio and members of the orchestra in concertos for violin, oboe, bassoon, and lute, underlining the level of virtuosity across the ensemble.

As the notes to this welcome release make clear Stokowski had never conducted The Four Seasons before the Phase Four series of LPs of which this is so engaging an example. He, soloist Hugh Bean and the New Philharmonia went to the BBC’s Maida Vale studios and taped it for later broadcast (in the end it wasn’t until 1968 that it hit the airwaves), recording it the following day. The late Hugh Bean has recalled that it was in the can in one session – Stokowski remaining the professional to his batonless fingertips.

There are people who buy everything Yo-Yo Ma releases, and that's a good thing: his incessant musical curiosity and his ability to carry his audience with him constitute a true bright spot in today's classical music scene. Fans of the two Simply Baroque discs Ma recorded with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra will find much to like in Vivaldi's Cello, featuring the same musicians and offering several Vivaldi cello concertos plus Vivaldi works arranged for cello and ensemble by Koopman.

Vivaldi's violin concertos, of which some 500 appear to be extant, were first written to showcase the composer's virtuosity on the violin, and so it is no wonder that this small selection of four concertos puts Monica Huggett in the limelight, her sweet violin tone generally dominating proceedings, although not altogether to the exclusion of the London Vivaldi Orchestra and its leader Roy Goodman.

Here is Vivaldi-playing with a commendably light, athletic touch. It's so easy to make a meal out of his orchestral tuttis yet these performances inspire the music with expressive delicacy and rhythmic vitality. The programme is a colourful one of concertos for a variety of instruments, wind and strings, in various combinations.

After a double album dedicated to Boccherini and acclaimed by critics, Ophélie Gaillard and the Pulcinella Orchestra reveal the incredible sound palette of Vivaldi, one of the most brilliant venetian musicians.