Vivaldi Naive Violin

In his definitive study of the composer's life and work, Michael Talbot spoke of the prospect of 'perpetual discovery' in respect of Vivaldi, resulting from a neglect spanning centuries. 'Scarcely a year passes,' he wrote in 1978, 'without the announcement of some fresh discovery'. This CD gives an excellent example of what we might expect even now, 30 years after Talbot's study, with a collection of new finds from just the last year and a half!

This is the 49th title in the Vivaldi Edition and the 5th volume, out of approximately 12, of the series dedicated to the violin concertos whose manuscripts are held in the National Library of Turin. All the concertos selected here are linked to German violinist Johann Georg Pisendel, member of the Dresden orchestra, who spent time in Venice in 1716-17, with the Electoral Prince of Saxony Friedrich August. Vivaldi and Pisendel became very close friends and the Red Priest composed several works for Pisendel. Moreover, Pisendel copied and performed afterwards in Germany several concertos by Vivaldi.

This is the 46th title in the Vivaldi Edition and the 4th volume, out of approximately 12, of the series dedicated to the violin concertos whose manuscripts are held in the National Library of Turin. All the concertos selected here were composed for, dedicated to or performed in front of Charles VI (1685-1740), sovereign of the Habsburg Empire, renowned as patron and passionate lover of music. This series of 7 concertos is an overview of the complete art of Vivaldi as a composer and violinist: large-scale music, invention, expression, energy, power of evocation, played with considerable virtuosity.

Volume 56 of Naïve’s series Tesori del Piemonte constitutes the first volume of Antonio Vivaldi’s double violin concertos in The Vivaldi Edition . Recorded in January 2013 in the Villa San Fermo in Lonigo, violinists Dmitry Sinkovsky (first violin in RV 509, RV 515, and RV 523) and Riccardo Minasi (first violin in RV 508, RV 510, and RV 517) hiss and spit in rapid tempo in the first movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor, RV 523. In the slow movement, they settle into a more lyrical mood, proceeding for long stretches in parallel motion before exchanging cogent ideas in the Finale, in which the ensemble sharply articulates scalar passages, enhancing the brilliant effect created by their rapid tempos. (Robert Maxham)

Few people nowadays seriously believe Vivaldi wrote the same concerto five hundred times. But the view that there is little variety in Vivaldi's oeuvre is still widely held. Louis T. Vatoison, in the programme notes to this recording, has a strongly different perception: "a Vivaldi concerto must (…) be seen as an individual 'snapshot', whose instrumental layout or formal structure implicitly reveal at what period, and sometimes even for whom it was written". The music on this disc gives ample evidence for this view.

Nel vastissimo catalogo delle opere di Antonio Vivaldi (circa 1.000 numeri considerando le appendici), la musica da camera rappresenta una parte non considerevole e, probabilmente, una delle meno note rispetto alla frequentatissima produzione concertistica e sacra, a cui si è agggiunta, negli ultimi anni, quella operistica. Per quest'ultima si pensi, ad esempio, alle recenti produzioni dell'etichetta "Naive" o alle arie d'opera riscoperte e magistralmente eseguite in forma di concerto da Cecilia Bartoli.

After the violin and bassoon, Vivaldi apparently like the cello best as a solo instrument. Because while the Italian Baroque master wrote somewhere over 200 violin concertos and 39 bassoon concertos, he also wrote 28 cello concertos. Part of his special affection may come from the fact that Vivaldi himself seems to have invented the genre. Although there had been passages for solo cello in earlier composers' works, Vivaldi apparently wrote the first actual concertos featuring the cello throughout. This disc, the first in Naïve's Vivaldi's Edition's releases of all the concertos played by Christophe Coin with Il Giardino Armonico led by Giovanni Antonini, is an easy winner.

Antonio Vivaldi - Concerti per Fagotto II
Sergio Azzolini, fagotto / L'Aura Soave Cremona / Diego Cantalupi
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 359 MB | Full Artwork: 92 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Naive # OP 30518 | Country/Year: France 2011
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

"Considering the small number of solo concertos for the bassoon from the baroque period the number of Vivaldi's compositions for this instrument is remarkable. With 39 concertos for one bassoon this part of his oeuvre is the second largest of his instrumental output, after the concertos for violin. That is all the more notable as there is no conclusive evidence that this instrument was played at the Ospedale della Pietà. Vivaldi wrote the largest part of his instrumental works for the girls of this institution…"