VIVALDI: Violin Concertos Op. 8, Nos. 5-8 and 10-12

R E V I E W S:

"This follow-up to La Serenissima’s anthology ‘Vivaldi in Arcadia’, is particularly interesting for the Concertos RV212 and RV554a, which have been reconstructed by Adrian Chandler. The former is a violin concerto, composed in 1712 for a festival in Padua and played by Vivaldi himself. A set of parts surviving in Dresden was damaged; the booklet note remarks, seemingly without irony, that this was ‘whilst in safe-keeping’ during the Second World War. Chandler has added the harmony here and there, and selected one of the three slow movements and two cadenzas. The result is a delight... In Laudate pueri Dominum, Mhairi Lawson sings with great passion, wonderfully responsive to the meaning of the words. In the surprisingly meditative Gloria, her vibrant soprano and Chandler’s violin sigh like lovers.The Salve regina is just as good...
Chandler’s direction is as gripping as his playing. As ever, one is lost in admiration at the skills of the girls who sang and played at the Ospedale della Pietà, to whom this is a noble tribute."
- Richard Lawrence, GRAMOPHONE

"The mastermind behind this terrific CD, Adrian Chandler, is not only Director of La Serenissima and a violinist of flair and distinction; he is also a meticulous scholar, as his excellent booklet notes reveal. He has clearly engaged in much fruitful research in preparing for this recording, even carrying out imaginative reconstruction where necessary.
The result is a rich musical treat. All of this music was written by the ‘Red Priest’ for use in the Chapel of the Pietá, the Convent School for orphans (or ‘foundlings’) in Venice. The music on the generously filled disc consists of three instrumental concerti and two solo vocal cantatas, Laudate Pueri and Salve Regina. These are sung by the Scottish soprano Mhairi Lawson, who turns in thoroughly delightful performances... This, and all the other instrumental music, is realised superbly by the players of La Serenissima, the enlarged chamber ensemble named after the city of its inspiration; the name being, of course, a poetic soubriquet for Venice itself. The string sound is pure and bold, yet capable of great subtlety when required. They are underpinned by a continuo section of great richness: the harpsichord of Joseph McHardy, the theorbo (bass lute) of Richard Sweeney, and the organ playing of Robert Howarth.
Despite the scholarship, there is nothing ‘academic’ about the performance of this music. Indeed, it is exuberant and often full of élan and humour."
- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

VIVALDI: Recorder Concertos (Complete)

REVIEW:

This CD has been given the title “The French Connection,” but it has nothing to do with the 1971 film in which Gene Hackman plays a New York City police detective trying to figure out where all the heroin is coming from. Instead, the title is an allusion to the increasing interest that French and Italian composers (and music lovers in general) had in each other’s music during the 1720s and 1730s. Vivaldi was an important player in this virtual exchange program, and supplied music—either new or recycled—for French patrons and printers. Even music intended for domestic use sometimes spoke with a French accent, as it were, during this period. Try the opening of RV 211 (probably composed as an operatic entr’acte) and you’ll immediately hear, in the dotted rhythms and swooping flourishes, an example of Vivaldi “speaking French.” This CD, then, is a varied compilation of works that fit into one of the above categories. As usual, one is impressed with Vivaldi’s fecundity and flexibility.

Adrian Chandler’s booklet notes are in two parts. The first is a discussion of Vivaldi’s impact on French music, and vice-versa. The second is “A note on the performance—a musician’s perspective.” This is a really terrific bit of musicology that even a layman should be able to get into. For example, in two of the so-called “Paris” concertos, a theorbo is used in the continuo, but in the fifth concerto, it is replaced with a guitar. Why, you might ask? Chandler argues that this concerto appears to have been specifically composed for a French audience and is the most typically French in style; therefore, it makes sense to use a guitar, which apparently was uncommon in Italian orchestral music at that time. Chandler also explains the two fragments included on this CD—concertos lacking one or more movements. Schubert’s “Unfinished” is, after all, a fragment, too, argues Chandler. I don’t think either of these fragments rises to Schubert’s level (or Bruckner’s Ninth!), but I agree with Chandler that works shouldn’t be ignored just because they are incomplete.

At first I thought that these performances were going to be too aggressive, but fortunately that is not the case, at least for the most part. The playing is lively (but not rushed) and very well articulated, and the fast movements have an appealing bounce. The musicians seem to be having fun. The slow movements sing nicely, without too much sweetness. La Serenissima was founded in 1994 and has recorded several discs for Avie. I am sorry to have missed them until now, but I hope to make up for that. Flutist Bircher and bassoonist Whelan are members of the ensemble. Whelan is particularly delightful to hear as he burbles through Vivaldi’s busier passages. His bassoon, a modern copy of an old Venetian instrument, even sounds a little like a saxophone at times, and to my ears, that only adds to the fun.

The recording is rich and brilliant, but not everyone will like how it brings the soloists so well into the foreground.

FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

Includes cto(s) for bsn by Antonio Vivaldi. Ensemble: Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia. Conductor: Béla Drahos. Soloist: Tamás Benkócs.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, and priest, best known for his dynamic instrumental concertos and innovative orchestral writing. Born in Venice, Vivaldi was trained in both music and theology, eventually becoming a violin teacher and composer at the Ospedale della Piet�, an orphanage for girls with an exceptional music program. His tenure there produced many of his finest instrumental works and helped shape the distinctive Venetian Baroque style. Vivaldi's concertos revolutionized instrumental music by exploring the expressive and technical possibilities of each instrument. His violin concertos expanded the concerto form, using clear contrasts between soloist and orchestra and developing the ritornello structure that would influence composers such as J.S. Bach. His flute concertos, composed later in his career, demonstrate his sensitivity to the instrument's lyrical qualities and agility. These concertos were among the earliest significant contributions to the flute repertoire and reflect the growing popularity of the transverse flute in the early 18th century. Vivaldi also wrote around 40 bassoon concertos, an unprecedented number for the time. These works reveal his deep understanding of the instrument's expressive range, from playful and energetic to dark and solemn. They remain central to the bassoon's solo literature today. This new recording presents the first recording of concertos which missed certain movements, and which are completed by reconstructing from existing musical materials, by Alessandro Ciccolini, achieving cohesive and stylistically faithful reconstructions. Ciccolini has already works extensively reconstructing Vivaldi operas, for publication by Barenreiter and Boosey & Hawkes, and performed by Alan Curtis for DG. Played by Tommaso Rossi (flute solo), Alessandro Ciccolini (violin solo & conductor), Giovanni Battista Graziadio (bassoon solo) and the Compagnia de Violini.

Ask 100 people and you'll know 100 things. Talking about numbers in Vivaldi's work is mind-boggling! 96 operas, dozens of cantatas and sacred pieces, over 600 instrumental pieces, including 230 violin concertos. One movement per day over a 40-year career... With this recording, Giuliano Carmignola reaches the milestone of 100 violin concertos for the first time in the history of recordings! 13 new compositions reveal the Treviso virtuoso's incomparable affinity with this repertoire of inexhaustible charm.

Il Bajazet was commissioned in 1735 to open Verona's carnival season. Vivaldi chose a libretto by Agostino Piovene drawn from the well-known story of the defeated Ottoman sultan, King Bajazet, captured by Tamerlane who duly falls in love with Bajazet's proud daughter, Asteria. Vivaldi was in his late maturity when he completed the opera, modifying his music to suit contemporary taste, and using the pasticcio form, incorporating some arias written by other, mostly Neapolitan, composers. Repurposing of this kind was wholly acceptable at the time and such works enjoyed great popularity. The conductor and Vivaldi specialist, Federico Maria Sardelli, has integrated lost arias, clarified the use of historically appropriate orchestration, and brought the opera to rich theatrical life.

VIVALDI: Dresden Concertos, Vol. 2

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Federico Maria Sardelli is perhaps one of the word’s most notable experts of Vivaldi music as well as a versatile and gifted artist (he’s a painter, a novelist, a conductor, a composer and a musicologist). He wrote many books about Vivaldi including a prize-winning novel. Twice nominated for the Grammy Awards (in 1996 and 1999), since 2007 he has been in charge of the Vivaldi catalogue (The Ryom Vivaldi Werkverzeichnis). He is the founder and the director of the baroque ensemble "Modo Antiquo". The Russian violinist Anton Martynov completes this remarkable cast for an outstanding Vivaldi. The ensemble Modo Antiquo performs here with aplomb alongside Martynov and Sardelli. Modo Antiquo is a protagonist of the current Vivaldi renaissance, having premiered on stage and in recording operas such as Arsilda, Tito Manlio, and others. Committed to the divulgation of Vivaldi’s rarest and unpublished operas, Modo Antiquo regularly records the latest rediscoveries as world premiere recordings.

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Carnival in Venice, the event people are talking about throughout Europe, is indeed the accumulation of the numbers of games, which were allowed to be played only in that season, unless there are other special reasons for celebration. In this sort of entertainment, we can enumerate comedies, operas, casino games, ballet, parades, bull fights, tightrope dances, puppet shows, and jugglers' performances. At that point in the celebration, everyone is allowed to wear masks all day long. In the old days, the carnival would start on the second day of Christmas and go throughout the beginning of the new year. The reason this was eventually postponed by officials was concern for public safety and the fact that many people were using masks as disguise to commit crimes. This release is to celebrate not only the carnival but also the works of Antonio Vivaldi. The form of Venetian opera was evoked by the baroqu eaesthetics: it demanded richness of impressions, diversity, contrasts, surprises but at the same time full pleasure transmitted from the stage. That is why the perfect solution was found in weaving dramatic action and love affairs. The public experienced a huge load of emotions throughout the performance. When the carnival was in full swing, Venice would experience up to five operatic productions a year!

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Annette Unger is featured on her fourth Genuin CD together with fellow Dresden Academy of Music professors Michael Pfaender and Ludger Remy. This trio performs the sonatas for violin and cello by Antonio Vivaldi.

This past year's Easter Concert of the Bach Consort Vienna, conducted by Ruben Dubrovsky in the Basilica of Klosterneuburg Monastery, featured works by Antonio Vivaldi, which he composed during his engagement with the orphanage Ospedale della Piet� in Venice. The young girls growing up there received early musical training, which led the choir and orchestra of the Ospedale to become internationally acclaimed. This concert recording by Bach Consort Vienna with soloists Andreas Scholl, alto, Hanna Herfurtner and Joowon Chung, soprano and the Salzburg Bach Choir combines instrumentals like the Sonata a quatro in E-flat major "Al Santo Sepolcro", RV 130 and the Concerto in G minor, RV 156 with the liturgical works Stabat Mater, RV 621 and Gloria, RV 589, written for Easter.

Gloria

Precious Baroque

Antonio Vivaldi, musical avant-gardist, extravagant violin virtuoso and ingenious composer, was in great demand all over Europe. He travelled to cities including Rome, Prague, Vienna and Amsterdam - but the "red-haired priest" never saw Dresden. Despite this, his music was very much present at the Dresden court: the Saxon royal seat was considered the centre of the German cultivation of Vivaldi. Heinrich E. Grimm has transcribed Vivaldi's most famous programmatic cycle, The Four Seasons, for the organ completely in the spirit of Bach. When recorded on an original instrument, the result is a refreshingly rustic-baroque sound.

Vivaldi' sacred music occupies a place of honour in his vast output, dovetailing passages of great tenderness and sombre beauty, rich in cantabile expressiveness, with highly operatic movements of colourful and exciting virtuosity.

VENICE

The Places
A city built on an archipelago of 117 islets, Venice is remarkable in many ways. Unsullied by modern traffic, its buildings retain much of their historic character and something of the magic of the place is reflected in our tour which starts and ends with the lagoon, after visiting the islands of Burano, Murano, Torcello and San Michele.
The Music
Violinist, priest and most prolific composer, Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678 and spent most of his life there, associated for much of the time with the Ospedale della Pietà, a charitable institution for girls, with a strong musical tradition. The music for the tour is taken from his collection of twelve concertos, L’Estro Armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), published in Amsterdam in 1711.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

R E V I E W:
Of all the tourist traps I have managed to visit, from China’s Great Wall to Paris via Granada, Rome, Florence and many other venues, Venice is the one that really blew me away. As one of the great Italian city-states of the medieval period it could be said to vie with Florence as a major centre of art and culture in the Renaissance with affluent families supporting the arts as well as wars. Now capital of the Veneto region, it is located at the very head of the Adriatic 4 km from the mainland of Italy to which it is joined by a causeway. It comprises more than one hundred small islands traversed by canals, there is no road traffic. Between the city and the Adriatic are the lagoons, expanses of water sheltered from the open sea by sandbanks and by the longer island of the Lido, the beach resort of the city. The lagoons are divided into Laguna Viva and Laguna Morta, alive and dead, the latter only underwater during spring high tides.
 
In the Venice lagoons are found several of the major islands included in this musical journey. The start is in the city itself with views of the Grand Canal at dusk and then seen as a boat looks back at the mighty Campanile of St. Marks. On the island of San Michele is the earliest Renaissance church of Venice, dating from the 15th century. This is the cemetery island where the city buried their dead. For some time demand has exceeded supply of space, and bones are removed. Despite this, elegant marble and colourful floral tributes abound with the sight of snow on the ground to remind the viewer that it is cold around here in winter (CH.1). The booklet reminds us that among the more permanent of the graves are those of the great Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the composer Igor Stravinsky and the American poet Ezra Pound.
 
The music throughout this journey is taken from Vivaldi’s set of twelve concertos known as L'Estro Armonico, first published in 1711. Himself a violinist of ability, his music receives due string sonority and grace of phrasing by the instrumentalists of Capella Istropolitana under Josef Kopelman. There are serious attempts to match changes of tempi in the various movements to change of venue.
 
After the cemetery island the journey continues to the still canal waters of Torcello and the Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta (CH.2). Its elegant interior houses a timeless mosaic of Madonna and Child and also an extensive Last Judgement, both from the late twelfth century but having received restoration. The early twelfth century Church of Santa Fosca is only interesting as regards its octagonal shape
 
The island of Burano (CH.4), the home of the composer Galuppi, has a certain timelessness too, with its visually dated shops, colourful fishing boats and lace-making. However it is the visit to the glass-making factory on Murano, for which the island is famous, that will draw the eye and the stirrings of covetousness (CH.5). To see the production of such things of beauty and intricacy is a delight; to be able to afford to buy one, or even a few of them to adorn one's home would be pleasant indeed.
 
The journey concludes (CH.6) with a return to Venice itself, past the Arsenal (built 1104) and a brief view of the Academia Bridge and the backwater canals and warehouses. Venice is now a city of industry as well as Grand Palaces such as that of Francesco Da Mosta whose series of programmes for the BBC is now available on DVD (BBCDVD2145). The programmes may lack music, but make up for it in informed narrative and superb photography. The latter is normally a strength of this series but, made in winter as indicated by the snow scenes and leafless trees, a little too much depends on the atmosphere of half-light and that of the lagoon directional buoys.
 
-- Robert J Farr, MusicWeb International

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Antonín Vivaldi (1678-1741) was 27 years old when his Opus 1 collection of 12 sonatas first appeared in print in 1705. Whether or not they represent his earliest acknowledged compositions, they certainly mark the start of a glittering career, bearing already identifiable Vivaldian fingerprints while also drawing on a heritage of Italianate chamber music exemplified by the trio sonatas of Corelli. The form of these early works resembles a suite rather than the three- and four-movement pieces determined by tempo marking which soon became standard practice for the sonatas and concertos composed by Vivaldi in such profusion. In all but three of the Opus 1 Sonatas, a freely developed prelude introduces a sequence of three dance movements such as sarabandes, gigues and gavottes. Solemnity and lively intimacy sit side by side, in an ingenious synthesis of church and chamber modes of expression. Vivaldi’s Opus 1 reaches a grand climax with a free-standing set of variations on the most popular melody in 18th century Italy, ‘La Folia’. This grave and antique chord-sequence of Spanish origin inspired the 20-something composer to handle the familiar instrumental line-up in a bold new way, liberating the bass line from a supporting role and giving some especially brilliant canonical dialogues to the two violins. The sonata demonstrates the degree to which vocal writing inspired Vivaldi’s slow movements and paved the way for his future ventures in opera. The album is completed by two sonatas from the Opus 5 collection published in 1716, and six more sonatas without an opus number (RV 60, 68, 71, 71, 74 and 77 in the Vivaldi catalogue), all scored for the same combination of instruments.

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Vivaldi’s instrumental output is immense: at present, research has identified no fewer than 478 works bearing the title ‘Concerto’, of which 329 are concertos for solo instrument accompanied by string orchestra and continuo, the violin concertos alone numbering 220. Incomplete as they are, these figures give some idea of the difficulty of attempting even a superficial analysis of the, ‘concerto’ form in Vivaldi’s oeuvre. The variety of structures employed in these works is in proportion to their numbers; and though certain progress has been made in recognising and classifying the compositional styles of the Venetian master, we often find that these ‘rules’ have in fact been laid aside in this or that composition. It must also be remembered that the development of Vivaldi’s style is closely related to the definition and consolidation of a form that finds its roots in works by a slightly earlier generation of composers such as Torelli and Albinoni. As Vivaldi’s career as a composer went on, in fact, we see considerable changes in both form (structure) and in musical invention. Vivaldi’s music was greatly admired by his contemporaries; the large number of imitators of his style who flourished while he was still alive bears witness to his popularity, as does the esteem in which a musician such as Quantz held the Venetian master, indicating his concertos as supreme examples of the form.

The flute occupies an important place amongst all the instruments celebrated by Vivaldi, il prete rosso, in his concerti. All evidence points to the instrument concerned being the recorder, given that it was still extremely popular in Italy at that time. The single publication of concerti that Vivaldi did not compose for the violin (opus X) was marked by him as being for the flute, as were the Concerti da Camera, in which the instrument rivals the violin, oboe and bassoon in virtuosity. Performing the recorder parts on this new release is Frederic de Roos. Frédéric de Roos is the recorder professor at the Royal Conservatorium of Brussels of which he has also been the director since 2003. After obtaining a university degree in musicology, he focused his studies on the recorder repertoire of the 18th century. He regularly presents conferences and seminars on the language of the baroque and gives courses and master classes both in Belgium and abroad.

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