Vivaldi: Concerto for Guitar and 2 Violins in D major, RV 93

Today’s leading virtuoso of the harp presents famous Baroque concerti by Albinoni, Marcello and Vivaldi in unique new arrangements.

“A selection of wonderful Baroque concerti by Venetian composers, like Marcello, Albinoni and Vivaldi – arranged for my instrument. In his famous “Winter” from The Four Seasons, the glass-like sounds of the harp create an ethereal mood astonishingly reproducing snowflakes and splintering icicles. So all these fantastic pieces which everyone knows suddenly seem fresh and new, and can be rediscovered thanks to the very special sound of the harp.” Xavier de Maistre

Xavier de Maistre is generally fêted as the artist who has managed to liberate the harp from its reputation for wonderful but very soft sounds, and establish it as a solo instrument in the concert hall.

On his new album "Notte Veneziana", the internationally successful harp virtuoso plays well-known concertos by the Venetian composers Vivaldi, Marcello and Albinoni in new arrangements, combining them with original compositions for solo harp such as the sonata by Giovanni Pescetti, Godefroid’s stunning set of variations on the popular tune “Carnaval de Venise”, and “La Mandoline” by 19th-century composer Elias Parish Alvars.

Xavier de Maistre's aim is to make the listener forget completely that most of the Baroque concertos heard here were not originally written for the harp, but for different melody instruments. He finds it fascinating to bring out new timbres in the arrangements, some of which he pens himself. Vivaldi's famous concerto "Winter", in particular, seems to him to be predestined for playing on the harp, and his interpretation does indeed present this often-heard work in a totally new guise.

“Xavier de Maistre is a virtuoso of the highest order, profoundly musical and capable of realizing a remarkable range of nuance.” (Gramophone)

A delightful collection of some of the most famous of Vivaldi's Guitar Concertos, many of these being transcriptions of lute works, and some in unique arrangements for four guitars or guitars with strings. Los Romeros are of course a legendary family of guitarists, so the recording is self-recommending

Even within Vivaldi’s vast treasure-store of concertos (555 and counting) there is very little music that features solo plucked instruments. Three of the works on this disc (two sonatas, and a D major concerto) were intended for the lute, while the fourth was for mandolin. When the revival of ‘early music’ in the first half of the 20th century brought with it a re-discovery of Vivaldi’s music, there simply were no lute players, and it became traditional for these works to be adapted for guitar. The concerto in C has latterly gained wide popularity, at least in its original guise as a mandolin concerto; playing it on the guitar requires minimal rearrangement and introduces it to a broader listenership. More intimate than the concertos, the two sonatas are slightly odd in that, rather than being a dialogue between two equal soloists as one might expect, the violin and the guitar actually play the melodies together for much of the time, with the former sometimes sustaining longer notes while the latter plays arpeggiated patterns. Massimo Scattolin was a pupil of the great Segovía; composers such as Astor Piazzolla and Violet Archer have written concertos for him. Here he is accompanied by a chamber ensemble based in Vivaldi’s own city of Venice.

Recorded in 1989

This CD is a re-issue of a recording of arrangements for mandolin orchestra of compositions by Antonio Vivaldi. The music is performed by the German Mandolin Orchestra under the direction of the conductor Siegfried Behrend who also arranged the pieces.

On this recording the Concerto Grosso in C major is an arrangement for two mandolins, two guitars and mandolin orchestra, whilst the lute concerto for mandolin orchestra has been adapted from a trio sonata for solo lute, violins and continuo. In the concerto in C major for oboe and mandolin orchestra the solo instrument is the original, whereas the strings and continuo are scored for mandolin orchestra. Similar arrangements are applied to the Concerto in C major for solo mandolin and mandolin orchestra, the Concerto in D minor for viola d’amore, lute and mandolin orchestra, and the Concerto in C major for two oboes and mandolin orchestra.