A luminous, easily recognizable instrument, and a symbol of Italy's learned and popular musical tradition, the mandolin has been the subject of several major compositions throughout the history of music. First of all, the famous concertos by Vivaldi: two of them appear here on this intensely romantic album (‘Come une volta’) that Julien Martineau - one of today’s greatest figureheads of the instrument - has recorded for Naïve. We also finally get to hear, thanks to the world premiere recording by Julien Martineau, the legendary, virtuosic and poetic second concerto (of which the manuscript was lost) by Raffaele Calace (1863-1934), who was often described as "the Paganini of the mandolin". The instrument is in fact so close, in many ways, to the violin. The Caudioso concerto completes an album which, steeped in authenticity and musical excellence, honors and lends prestige not only to the art of mandolin, but also to Italian and musical culture as a whole.

According to Greek mythology, Zefiro was the tender and kind God of the Western Wind. In 1989, the oboists Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi, and the bassoonist Alberto Grazzi, members of the most outstanding baroque orchestras, founded Zefiro, a versatile music group specialising in the eighteenth-century repertoire that gives particular prominence to wind instruments. Since then, Zefiro has performed at many major worldwide festivals and recorded 20 Cds, including the complete works for wind ensemble of W. A. Mozart, all virtuosic sonatas of J.D. Zelenka (Astrée), and three instalments of the distinguished Vivaldi Edition on Naïve. After a long-term collaboration with Sony Classical/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, this new Vivaldi recording marks the beginning of an exclusive partnership of the Italian ensemble with Arcana, which will result in a true Zefiro series, characterised by its own artwork, focused on new releases but whose task will also be to make their discography still available. Antonio Vivaldi was (and has remained) the most productive composer of concertos for solo bassoon. Thirty-nine concertos for solo bassoon, strings and basso continuo by him have survived. As a group, they are noteworthy for their high musical quality, their stylistic maturity and their depth of feeling, a property shared with Vivaldi's concertos for the cello. Vivaldi shows perfect understanding of the mercurial temperament of the instrument, which is able in an instant to move from the comic to the tragic, from the melancholy to the joyful. An active player on the early music scene for the last 25 years, Alberto Grazzi is presenting here seven concertos from the enormous corpus of the Venetian composer. This selection, with 4 concertos in major and 3 in minor keys, represents Alberto Grazzi's personal choice in showing the expressive qualities of the bassoon in Vivaldi's world. This work is the result of a Alberto Grazzi's long-term practise as a baroque player, here magnificently supported by the Ensemble Zefiro.

It is remarkable that listeners in later ages hardly ever share the preferences of a composer’s contemporaries. This is also true to a certain extent in the case of Antonio Vivaldi. The twelve concertos op. 8, Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione of which The Four Seasons are the first four, were only printed four times. The first edition, published in Amsterdam by Michel Charles le Cene, appeared in 1725, and it was reprinted three times by the Paris publisher Le Clerc. L’Estro’s popularity was equaled by Il Cimento only in France. This great success in France was undoubtedly due partly to the fact that French theoreticians often were less skeptical about the onomatopoeic potential of music than for instance their English colleagues. We do not know how Vivaldi himself regarded these theoretical questions. There are hardly any quotations extant from the Venetian master in which he airs his views on composition of aesthetics. Even the relation between the score of The Four Seasons and the four “explanatory sonnets” that Vivaldi had printed along with the first edition, is not quite clear. Did Vivaldi, in writing the Four Seasons, base himself on a specific programme? From the countless special effects the score offers it appears that this must have been the case. Yet the fact that some sonnet lines have no parallel in the music suggests the programme was not as well-defined as the sonnets would lead us to believe. One of the world’s most sought-after conductors, Jaap van Zweden has been Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012.

In its second release on Linn, The Avison Ensemble explores the rich diversity and delights of all twelve concertos in Vivaldi’s Opus 8. It includes the composer’s most famous work, 'The Four Seasons’, which contains some of the most instantly recognizable music ever composed and is today viewed as a pinnacle of musical art. Directed by Pavlo Beznosiuk, The Avison Ensemble presents an insightful and spirited performance of the masterpiece. Each of the twelve concertos is extremely demanding and Beznosiuk’s virtuosity permeates throughout each performance. The thematic elements within each innovative work result in a collection that is colorful, fresh and emotionally charged, and is a true testament of Vivaldi’s ability for invention and variation. Beznosiuk states: ‘The Four Seasons are well-known, well-loved and great fun to play, but let us not forget how richly characterful the other eight concerti are also. Throughout the set Vivaldi’s musical energy vibrates within us, connecting us to him in an irresistible, celebratory collection’.