Liszt Ference Chanber Orchestra Vivaldi

Recording Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, aside from playing the notes, is no easy task. What is the most important aspect? For the musical effects and ideas that Vivaldi enveloped in the notation to find their way to the minds of today’s audiences, creating the same forceful effect as in the eighteenth century.

In April 1981 violinist Gidon Kremer performed Vivaldi's Four Seasons leading the English Chamber Orchestra recorded in the baroque library of the monastery in Polling, near Munich. It is, as one would expect from a master violinist, a superbly insightful performance. The sound is resonant and satisfying although surely not true 5.1, and those who wish to have this music on video might well investigate it.

Teresa Berganza Vargas is a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with the roles of Rossini, Mozart, and Bizet. She is admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence, and beguiling stage presence.

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.

First staged in 1724 during the Carnival of Rome in the Capranica Theater, the original 'Il Tigrane' was composed by the trio of Benedetto Michell (Act I), Antonio Vivaldi (Act II), and Nicola Romaldi (Act III). While the libretto has surived, the music of the first and third acts are lost. The composers dedicated the opera to the Pope's niece, Faustina Mattei Conti Guadagnolo.