Vivaldi: Concerto for strings in E minor, RV 134

The acclaimed Polish period band Arte dei Suonatori perform eight of Vivaldi’s concertos a Quattro. Their version of Handel’s 12 Concerto grossi Op. 6 was awarded ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ in BBC Music Magazine, alongside further critical acclaim from the international music press.

As well as being a major composer in the formation of the solo concerto, he also was the leading exponent of the older concerto a quattro – music in four parts, with several players to a part. His works in this genre are notable not only for their beauty, but also for their experimental character and for providing the most important examples of fugal writing in Vivaldi’s instrumental music.

This recording includes eight of the concertos, as well as the Sinfonia from the serenata La Senna festeggiante (The Rejoicing Seine) composed in honour of the young French king Louis XV, and the Sonata a 4 in E flat major ‘Al Santo Sepolcro’.

It is remarkable that concertos by Vivaldi are still awaiting their first recordings, and this CD programmes 8 ‘solemn’ concertos. Solemn in this context usually meant a slow introduction, acting as a prelude to the following 3 movements. Vivaldi was a master at creating concertos from other works, and these were known as ‘pasticcio’ concertos. For example, sinfonias or overtures to his many operas provided a happy hunting ground for such concertos, and on this CD the concertos are a mix of Vivaldi’s pasticcios and those of the Pablo Queipo de Llano, a Vivaldi scholar and author the comprehensive CD booklet essay.

To illustrate how adept Vivaldi was at turning existing works to new uses, the finale of RV197 was originally the double fugue from the overture to the serenata La senna festeggiante RV693. This had in turn been adapted by Vivaldi from the closing section of Lotti’s Moralita d’una perla. The opening movement of RV155 was reused by Vivaldi for his Salve Regina RV618 The tradition of pasticcio concertos arranged from other composer’s works was common practice at the Dresden court, where the director was Johann Georg Pisendal, a pupil of Vivaldi. Many movements by Vivaldi were found among the manuscripts in Dresden, and form the basis for these reconstructions.

Period instrument performances.

Extensive booklet note by the editor of the concertos.

New recording made in 2009 in Venice.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) was a musical genius and shone at his brightest when writing for strings. His ever-popular Four Seasons aside, there are countless other extraordinary concertos that Vivaldi wrote for strings.

This recording, a re-release dating from 1992, presents no fewer than nine concertos: two featuring solo cello; one for solo violin and cello; one for two violins and two cellos; one for four violins; and finally four for string orchestra without soloists.

Extraordinary repertoire demands extraordinary performances and those from our orchestra and guests are second to none.

Vivaldi composed for the violin, Vivaldi composed for the contralto voice... always with a wealth of inspiration, as well as impressive virtuosity, and constant joy and vitality.

Antonio Vivaldi was famously both a virtuoso performer and an impresario. The same can be said of Adrian Chandler, whose passionate advocacy has associated him with the Red Priest’s music like no other. Following last autumn’s release of The Rise of the North Italian Violin Concerto 1690–1740, Volume One: The Dawn of the Virtuoso (AV 2106), which earned Chandler and his ensemble La Serenissima an Editor’s Choice from Gramophone magazine, Avie offers the second in a three-volume series exploring the development of the violin and growing demand for virtuoso repertoire during the Italian baroque era, of which Vivaldi was undisputedly the zenith. Mirroring the highly successful format of Volume One, Chandler intersperses dazzling concerti with contemporaneous vocal works, illuminating these genres’ effects on each other in Vivaldi’s oeuvre. If Chandler’s thorough research is a multi-faceted crystal, his performances are the rainbow-hued shaft of light brightly shining through.

Naïve’s very successful ‘Baroque Voices’ series of mid-price re-issues goes one better with four special box sets at even greater discount. The last of these comprises four wide-ranging discs of Vivaldi’s sacred music. Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano again contribute extensively, performing on three mixed discs, with the popular Gloria, Stabat Mater, Cantatas and various concerti among the pieces, and Alessandro de Marchi directs the Academia Montis Regalis on a recording of six Vivaldi Motets.