Vivaldi Project

A Gramophone editor's Choice, this double album brings together the third volume of Concerti per archi (strings) and the complete Concerti for viola d'amore by the Venetian genius. The Accademia Bizantina and its iconic chief Ottavio Dantone bring to this release a talent so great it is matched only by their dedication. The Vivaldi Edition is an ambitious project begun at the beginning of the century to record some 450 works by Vivaldi, many of them unknown, found in the National University Library of Turin. With the collaboration of today’s leading interpreters of Baroque music we are making available to the public hundreds of works, many in the composer’s own hand and covering every musical genre.

The project to record all of the 450-odd works by Vivaldi held by the National University Library of Turin proceeds apace. It only seems yesterday that I was reviewing the opera "Orlando Furioso". For that set a very radical band of period performers was chosen, the Ensemble Matheus. L’Astrée – a Turin group in spite of its French name – are less radical in the sense that they don’t make their instruments rasp and bite, but I would say no less imaginative. With the help of a really lifelike recording – the instruments truly seemed to be in my listening room – the music just leaps off the page.

French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, whose honey-sweet voice perhaps remains the best introduction to the countertenor voice for the skeptical, attempts something new with the collection of gorgeous and generally underrated Vivaldi works. It might, therefore, not be perfectly appropriate as an introduction to Jaroussky, but it's a daring and altogether engrossing project. The collection is accurately billed as a group of sacred works for alto, which makes it a surprising attempt for : his voice corresponds most closely to a mezzo-soprano range, and he has in the past taken on full-scale operatic arias where his voice blooms into a colorful and attractive top. Here he deliberately forbids himself that part of his vocal repertoire, even in faster, more athletic pieces that would seem to permit it.

Andromeda Liberata is a serenata, or two-part ceremonial cantata with a hint of allegorical storyline, given in Venice on September 18, 1726, in honor of visiting Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. Most early eighteenth century works of this type are so courtly, genteel, and refined that often their common destiny is to languish and gather dust on the shelves of some archive rather than be promoted and performed. Andromeda Liberata is an exception in that parts of it are traceable to the pen of one Antonio Vivaldi, whose varied and outstanding contribution to other types of works, including opera, are well noted elsewhere. Vivaldi, however, is not solely responsible for the score; although the musicological jury is still out on many sections contained within Andromeda Liberata, among the suspect roster may be found other prominent names (Tomaso Albinoni, Nicola Porpora, and Antonio Lotti) and some lesser ones (Giovanni Porta and Antonino Biffi).

I have to use my voice very instrumentally.” Soprano Réka Kristóf, recently awarded the prize at the Anton Rubinstein Academy in Dusseldorf, sees what Handel and Vivaldi demand of her in terms of vocal flexibility as a positive challenge.

Naïve releases the third volume dedicated to Vivaldi’s violin concertos in its ground breaking project, the Vivaldi Edition. Multi award-winning violinist Duilio Galfetti is accompanied by acclaimed early music ensemble I Barocchisti under the direction of Diego Fasolis.

Sophie Dervaux' new album "Vivaldi Bassoon Concertos" is part of her larger project to record all of 39 of Vivaldis bassoon concerts. This album presents the first 6 concertos of this journey; RV 474, RV 497, RV 481, RV 501, RV 484 and RV 473. Apart from the violin, Vivaldi wrote as many concertos for no other instrument than the bassoon, knowing expertly how to write for this instrument to highlight its unique qualities.