Vivaldi Naive Violin

Fireworks, virtuosity and bravura pieces are essential ingredients of Vivaldi’s concerto oeuvre. Discover or rediscover Vivaldi’s concertos played by the most prestigious artists.

The Vivaldi Concerto for mandolin and orchestra, RV 425, was an essential component of the 1970s classical LP collection – with the mandolin amped up so loud in order to compete with a large orchestral string section that it sounded like an electric guitar blazing through an arena rock concert. Things have improved a bit since then, but balance between soloists and ensemble has always been a problem with the works featured on this release. The problem has rarely been solved so nicely as it is here. The group of string players used, a fine pan-European set of historical-performance specialists, is not especially small, and lutenist/guitarist/mandolinist Rolf Lislevand is elegant and clean but not arresting on his own.

Vivaldi’s music enjoyed a cult following in Dresden after its introduction by the composer’s pupil Johann Pisendel, and listening to these works it is not hard to hear why. The two G minor concertos are scored for violin, two recorders, two oboes and strings (with an extra solo oboe in RV576), while the F majors both deploy a line-up of violin, two oboes, two horns and strings – rich stuff, reflecting the sumptuous sound-world of the Electoral orchestra.

"Vivaldi’s music enjoyed a cult following in Dresden after its introduction by the composer’s pupil Johann Pisendel, and listening to these works it is not hard to hear why. The two G minor concertos are scored for violin, two recorders, two oboes and strings (with an extra solo oboe in RV576), while the F majors both deploy a line-up of violin, two oboes, two horns and strings – rich stuff, reflecting the sumptuous sound-world of the Electoral orchestra…" - GRAMOPHONE

En ce nouveau volume, Opus 111 poursuit son entreprise de découverte de l'oeuvre vivaldien. Le choix de mêler concertos et cantates, opéré déjà dans le précédent volume, se révèle toujours aussi judicieux : c'est en somme une manière de donner à la philologie et au souci archéologique les séductions du concert.

Vivaldi’s lively and engaging earlier works need virtuoso playing – and here receive it… Like most composers of his time, Vivaldi began his publishing career with sonatas. His sonatas, although just as strongly marked by his distinctive musical personality, are played much less today than his admittedly more numerous concertos. The six here, not in fact from the published sets, are utterly unlike the familiar Corelli sonata model: no serene, rationally worked-out counterpoint, but brilliant violinistic gestures and capricious changes of texture, pace and mood…What they need is two violinists who are lively virtuosos, able to imitate each other closely, match exactly in articulation (or inexactly, if they choose) and frolic happily in thirds or sixths high on the E string (as required a good deal in the finales of RV68 and 70). Certainly that’s what they get here.