Vivaldi

Danish National Baroque Orchestra Concerto Copenhagen is one of the leading baroque orchestras in the world.

Following his attractive performance of six of Vivaldi's cello sonatas, Christophe Coin has recorded six of the composer's 24 or so concertos for the instrument. Five of these, Michael Talbot tells us in an interesting accompanying note, probably belong to the 1720s while the sixth, the Concerto in G minor (RV416), is evidently a much earlier work. Coin has chosen, if I may use the expression somewhat out of its usual context, six of the best and plays them with virtuosity and an affecting awareness of their lyrical content. That quality, furthermore, is not confined to slow movements but occurs frequently in solo passages of faster ones, too. It would be difficult to single out any one work among the six for particular praise. My own favourite has long been the happily spirited Concerto in G major (RV413) with which Coin ends his programme. Strongly recommended. (Gramophone Magazine)

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.

Four Concerti Grossi - the embodiment of joyous music making. Four journeys into the past to link a modern musical language with characteristic aspects of Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and fancifully abstruse the historical figure of Dracula. Everything is tongue-incheek, but artfully assembled and full of sly double meanings. The Concerto Bach-Metamorphosen not only plays with the famous four notes B-A-C-H, but also shares the radicalism and noncompromising nature of Bachs aesthetic principles.

Antonio Vivaldi - Four Seasons / Concerto RV317 in G minor / Concerto RV257 in E flat major
Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra / Daniel Gaede, violin / Wojciech Rajski
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 289 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Tacet # TACET S 163 | Country/Year: Germany 2008
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

Part of Tacet's "Tube Only" recording series. No transistors were used within the recordig chain.

Here is Vivaldi-playing with a commendably light, athletic touch. It's so easy to make a meal out of his orchestral tuttis yet these performances inspire the music with expressive delicacy and rhythmic vitality. The programme is a colourful one of concertos for a variety of instruments, wind and strings, in various combinations.

Vivaldi’s sonatas for violin and continuo follow his volume of trio sonatas, which, like these, paid homage to the acknowledged master of the form, Arcangelo Corelli, but staked out new, personal territory. Michael Talbot’s notes trace the origins of these sonatas in duets and various changes in their editions’ title pages if not thoroughgoingly in the nature of their conception.

Alors que l'Ensemble Matheus a aujourd'hui conquis une légitime notoriété pour ses interprétations du répertoire baroque, leurs deux premiers disques de 1995-96 compilés dans le présent coffret se mesuraient déjà aux Concertos de Vivaldi. Et avec quelle bonheur !