Antonio Vivaldi

Gramophone Critic's Choice

“King's 'super-group' featuring choristers drawn from seven English cathedral and collegiate choirs sounds better than ever – technically reliable, with a good, full sound – and are a credit to King's vision in bringing them together. This volume has five typically uplifting works, three of which – Lauda Jerusalem, Dixit Dominus and the G minor Kyrie – offer the opulent sound of double choir and orchestra. Dixit Dominus is the most substantial, a colourful 23-minute sequence of varied solos and choruses, with trumpets, oboes and two organs all chipping in, most notably in an awe-inspiring depiction of the Day of Judgement. The other two are perhaps less striking, though Lauda Jerusalem is certainly charming in its two-soprano interchanges.
Highlights of the single-chorus works include another exquisite soprano duet and a fiery 'Fecit potentiam' in the Magnificat, and an extraordinary 'Crucifixus' in the Credo which departs from the pain-wracked norm by seemingly depicting with lugubrious slow tread Christ's walk to Calvary. King manages very well in capturing the essence of Vivaldi's bold, sometimes disarmingly straightforward style. These tidy performances are driven with just the right amount of springy energy – neither too much nor too little – and are well recorded in the warm resonance of St Jude's Church, Hampstead in London.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

'A rewarding issue, well documented and spaciously recorded' (Gramophone)

“Here are two of Vivaldi's most extended and impressive psalm settings. These are the singlechoir Dixit Dominus, RV595 (Psalm 110), and double-choir Beatus vir, RV597 (Psalm 112).
Vivaldi set both psalms more than once, and King's programme also includes the singlemovement Beatus vir, RV598, as well as the response, Domine ad adiuvandum me, RV593, and the conservatively styled Vesper psalm, Credidipropter quod, RV605. The King's Consort Choir make a lively and warm-textured contribution; the solo line-up is also strong; with Susan Gritton and Catrin Wyn-Davies providing an evenly matched, lightly articulated partnership in their two duets. Neal Davies and Michael George are splendidly robust in their vigorous 'Potens in terra' duet from Beatus vir (RV597). Catherine Denley gives an appropriately strongly inflected account of 'Judicabit in nationibus' but is intimate and tender in her beautiful 'De torrente in via bibet' (from Dixit).
The remaining soloist, Charles Daniels, delivers the virtuoso 'Peccator videbit' (Beatus vir, RV597) with lightness and comfortable agility.
Although consisting of only three movements, the G major Domine ad adiuvandum me, is easily on a level with the larger-scale pieces, its expressive warmth irresistible. This is a rewarding issue, spaciously recorded.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Outstanding!
Early Music Review

“Robin Blaze sings with passion and raw honesty, and delivers plenty of sweetly contoured coloratura. The King's Consort boldly play with resonance and passion.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

“This release in Robert King's complete cycle of Vivaldi's church music mainly features works unconnected with the Ospedale della Pietà, including a motet written in Rome and the famous Stabat mater composed for a church in Brescia. All are for solo voice or voices and orchestra, and for the most part they all carry the typical Vivaldi trademarks: boisterous energy alongside a tender if angular lyricism; a vivid and excitable responsiveness to verbal imagery; and what the insert-notes describe as 'a shocking radicalism: a willingness to strip music down to its core and reconstitute it from these simplest elements'. The best works on this disc are the first three. In turbato mare is a rip-roaring 'simile' motet which makes use of the old operatic device of comparing a troubled soul to a stormtossed ship finding peace in port. The noble Nonin pratis aut in hortis is an introduzione, a short motet designed to precede a performance of a lost Miserere; since it ends on a half-close, it's followed here (with musical if not liturgical logic) by the Stabat mater. All are excellently sung; few recordings exist of the first two, but it's hard to imagine the ebulliently virtuosic Susan Gritton and the movingly firm-voiced Jean Rigby being significantly bettered. By contrast, the Stabat mater is well-trodden territory, but the warmly mellifluous Robin Blaze easily matches his rivals on disc. The King's Consort is a little raw in the string department, but in general it shows bright and lively form and is well served by an acoustic perfectly suited to the occasion. Under King's direction, too, they capture splendidly the spirit of this uncomplicated but atmospheric music.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Premio Internazionale del Disco Antonio Vivaldi, per la Musica vocale

“By the standards of the average Vivaldi violin concerto, the La stravaganza set is quite extravagant stuff, full of fantasy and experiment – novel sounds, ingenious textures, exploratory melodic lines, original types of figuration, unorthodox forms. It's heady music, and listening to its 12 concertos at a sitting, isn't a mode of listening one would recommend.
Still less so in performances as high in voltage as the present ones. There's a current trend in Baroque performance to get away from the cool- ness and objectivity which for a long time were supposed (on the whole, mistakenly) to be a part of performing practice of the time, but possibly the pendulum has swung a little wildly the other way. Perhaps here it's intended to reflect Vivaldi's own notorious freedom of performance. But anyone who's admired earlier recordings with period instruments may find these a little extravagant and hard-hitting. And they aren't helped by the resonant acoustic of the church in Poland used for the recording, which produces a full and bright sound but a boomy bass and less clear a texture than might be ideal.
That said, however, these performances by Rachel Podger are crackling with vitality and executed with consistent brilliance as well as a kind of relish in virtuosity that catches the showy spirit, the self-conscious extravagance, of this particular set of works. There are plenty of movements here where her sheer digital dexterity is astonishing – for instance, the finale of No 6, with its scurrying figures, the second movement of No 7 or the finale of No 2 with its repetitive figures and leaping arpeggios. But perhaps even more enjoyable isthe exquisitely fine detail of some of the slow movements. No 8 in D minor is perhapsthe wildest concerto of the lot, with its extraordinary lines in the first movement, the passionate, mysterious outer sections in the second and the powerful and original figuration inthe finale: that one has a performance to leave you breathless.
Another thing Podger is specially good at is the shaping of those numerous passages of Vivaldian sequences, which can be drearily predictable, but aren't so here because she knows just how to control the rhythmic tension and time the climax and resolution with logic and force. This set is certainly recommended as a fine example of a modern view of Baroque performance – and it sounds even better on SACD.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…the period-instrument band Europa Galante and violinist Fabio Biondi… have taken a new broom to every concerto in the collection. In every concerto they've radically rethought phrasing, articulation, attack and rhetoric. …it's never less than exhilarating. And Europa Galante crowns its recording with a quartet of Seasons designed to make us think again about the music. The better we know the Seasons, the more surprising and effective their new ideas appear...” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006