Progetto Parrusia

The initial inspiration for this project came to me while I was writing a monograph on Schönberg’s “Verklärte Nacht”, Il labirinto e l’intrico dei viottoli [The Labyrinth and the Tangle of Pathways]. Schönberg, like Mahler, was attuned to the relationship between music and venues for music, and in my research, I discovered that Mahler was particularly concerned with the chamber-music aspect of his own Lieder from the Wunderhorn collection. He had even conducted some of them in what was then known as the Small Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein (now Brahms Hall), a space only suitable for a chamber orchestra—too small for the ensemble required for some of these Lieder. I consequently wondered about the kind of adaptation Mahler had made for that performance, while I was already considering undertaking a similar operation myself.

With its Progetto Vivaldi releases from Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta, Sony Classical seems to be trying to take back the spotlight from France's Naïve label and its gutsy, even tumultuous Vivaldi recordings. The attempt has no right to work as well as it does. Gabetta did not emerge from the early music world, only recently having taken up the gut-strung "Baroque" cello (she plays a 1781 instrument by the Neapolitan maker Gagliano), and even more recently learned the art of leading her own Cappella Gabetta ensemble. But this is a young musician who merits the collection of accolades that have come her way, and these are very strong performances.

Sol Gabetta performs three of Vivaldi’s cello concertos plus his Concerto for Two Mandolins and Orchestra in G, which she and her brother, violinist Andres Gabetta, have arranged for violin, cello and orchestra. The recital is completed with four cello concertos by contemporaries of Vivaldi, Giovanni Platti, Andrea Zani and Fortunato Chelleri’s Cello Concerto in G which is a world premiere accompanied by Capella Gabetta, the ensemble that she founded together with her brother Andres.

Best known for his huge output of concertos for the violin, Antonio Vivaldi produced a sizeable number of concertos for other instruments including the cello, an instrument that was little used as a soloist during Vivaldi's time. In all, there are 27 extant cello concertos that, like the violin concertos, push the instrument's technical and expressive abilities.