Vivaldi: Concerto, Op. 3 No. 11 'Con due Violini e Violoncello obligato', RV 565

Alongside the famous Quattro Stagioni, La Notte, and so on, Vivaldi wrote no fewer than 27 concertos for the cello – an instrument which at the time was generally limited to playing basso continuo. With the genuine virtuosi he had available to him at the Ospedale della Pietà, the Red Priest played a key role in the emancipation of the cello, which so readily inspired him to invent varied figuration. The musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin have chosen to add highly expressive pieces by Caldara to punctuate the sumptuous feast of sound offered by maestro Queyras.

Hyperion’s Bach Transcriptions series shows Bach through the fascinating prism of the Romantic musical mind. This latest volume presents the complete transcriptions by Saint-Saëns, and the programme is interspersed with transcriptions by the elder composer’s friend and disciple, Isidore Philipp. Saint-Saëns was one of the many composers inspired by the continuing publications from the Bach-Gesellschaft, which made many of Bach’s works available in print for the first time, particularly the extraordinary church cantatas. His transcriptions are of particular interest due to his choice of unfamiliar music that was not originally conceived for a keyboard instrument, and the care with which he has made the transcriptions. These are superbly effective piano realizations achieved with the minimum of intervention.

Hyperion is thrilled to present the young Bulgarian pianist Nadejda Vlaeva in her label debut. She performs with a palpable energy and impressive technical assurance.

It is only recently that two seemingly unconnected names, those of Vivaldi and the viola da gamba, have been uttered in the same breath. The established, uncontested view on the matter was quite simply this: from the middle of the 17th century, the viol, which was still flourishing north of the Alps, had all but disappeared in Italy, where it had been replaced by the bass violin and, subsequently, by the cello.

Yet, among the more than 800 surviving works by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), five include movements for an instrument that Vivaldi refers to variously as "viola inglese" (English viol), "viola all inglese" or "violoncello all‚inglese". Clearly, the instrument was not a member of the violin family, although for centuries musicians have performed these parts on the baritone cello. In fact, it now seems clear from recent research that the viola da gamba had not entirely disappeared in Italy: Vivaldi was introduced to the viol by his father Giovanni Battista Vivaldi (the latter being employed at the Ospedale dei mendicanti in Venice, which boasted a consort of seven viols). In addition to his violin classes, from 1704 Antonio Vivaldi also taught the "viola all’inglese" at Ospedale della Pietà. Evidence has been found of numerous instruments being loaned to the institutions of the Pietà by rich Venetians. The golden age of the viol at the Pietà therefore exactly coincided with the period during which Vivaldi composed works including this instrument, around 1720.

This album brings together all of Vivaldi's concerti containing one or several parts written expressly for the viola da gamba. Of these, three contain handwritten notes by the composer calling for the "viole all’inglese". The earliest, the Concerto in A Major RV 546, dates from 1720, giving a new lease of life to the use of this instrument; the contrast between the tones of the violin and the bass viol holds a special fascination. The Concerto Funebrein B flat major RV579, with soprano viola da gamba, lends a subtle tone to this highly expressive work. The Concerto con molti Istromenti in C major RV 555 uses two treble viols; it is an unusual work with some superb effects of instrumental colour. To these magnificent pieces are added the Concerto in F major RV 540 for violin and cello, the Concerto in B minor RV 580, with 4 violins and cello, and the Concerti in D minor and G minor, where the cello part is played by the viola da gamba.

The original autographs, which are preserved in the Turin National Library, bear witness to Vivaldi’s extraordinary inventiveness in the combination of timbres and the development of the concertante and virtuoso language, which ranges from the elegiac Concerto Funebre to the dazzling Concerto per molti Istromenti.

The stylish sweetness Marriner and his Academy bring to Vivaldi have a place of their own in the pantheon of Vivaldi recordings and these eight concertos amply testify this in their breezy melodiousness and sharpness of attack.