The Four Seasons / Concerto in B minor, RV 580 for 4 violins / etc

The Four Seasons / Concerto in B minor, RV 580 for 4 violins / etc cover $35.00 Out of Stock
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VIVALDI
The Four Seasons / Concerto in B minor, RV 580 for 4 violins / etc
Richard Tognetti, violin & direction / Australian Chamber Orchestra

[ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD ]

Release Date: Saturday 10 January 2015

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

1711 saw the publication of what was to become one of the most important musical collections of the first half of the 18th century: Antonio Vivaldi's L'estro armonico ('The Harmonic Fancy'). Scored for one, two, or four violin soloists, the twelve concertos in the set fuelled a burgeoning fashion for new Italian music in northern Europe, and were soon being avidly performed and enjoyed in major musical centres, inspiring younger composers including Bach, Handel and Telemann.

Vivaldi's set - represented here by the Concerto in B minor, RV 580 and Violin Concerto in A minor, RV 356 - established a vogue for a virtuosic and brilliant type of writing, with fast movements characterized as much by their propulsive basses as by conventional melodiousness and with central slow movements often exuding a mesmeric, almost ghostly calm. Fourteen years later another collection of concertos - Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ('The Contest of Harmony and Invention') - would secure Vivaldi's reputation for eternity. The first four concertos of this collection form what has become one of the most widely spread classical compositions in the history of music: Le Quattro Stagioni.

Countless violinists have recorded Vivaldi's Four Seasons, not to mention the many arrangements of the pieces for other instruments. Now Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a team internationally recognized for its virtuosity, energy and individuality, has recorded their take on Vivaldi's springtime birdsong, summer thunderstorm, autumn hunting and chattering teeth of icy winter. The programme also includes two typically Vivaldian slow movements, a Largo and a Grave, as well as a Sinfonia for strings originally intended as the overture of the opera La verità in cimento ('Truth in contention').

"Only you will know if this Four Seasons will be a requirement for your music library, but with fabulous performances and BIS's state of the art recording I would say it has to be one of the top choices in a fiercely competitive market. If you are new to this music then you are in for a treat, and if you haven't treated yourself to a new one lately, this is worth more than just a punt. The booklet tells us that Richard Tognetti was made an Australian National Living Treasure in 1999, and that's the way I feel about this release - it is indeed one to treasure." (MusicWeb April 2015)

"It is sufficiently respectful of Baroque sensibilities as to appeal to those who might shy away from too much animal scene-setting and yet has enough meteorological definition to convey the fact that Vivaldi was not just writing four concertos but was trying to capture images of spring, summer, autumn and winter within them." (Daily Telegraph)

Tracks:

Antonio Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons), Op.8 Nos 1-4
Largo from Violin Concerto in D major, RV 226
Concerto in B minor, RV 580 for 4 violins, cello, strings and basso continuo*
(with Helena Rathbone, violin; Satu Vänskä, violin; Ike See, violin; Timo-Veikko Valve, cello)
Violin Concerto in A minor, RV 356
Grave from Violin Concerto in D major, RV 562
Sinfonia from La verità in cimento, RV 739