Remembering that Venice was the epicenter of Italian opera at this time, it's not surprising that Carmignola and this group bring a very dramatic approach to the music.įor a full archive of NPR's Classical 50, click here.If listeners had to commit to a single version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the rest of their lives, this 1984 BIS recording would be thoroughly satisfying choice.
What sets Vivaldi apart as a composer is not just the quality of his ideas, but the vitality of their expression, and Carmignola picks up on that. There's a lot more to these concertos, and to Carmignola's performances, than simply getting the figuration of the pitches right. The Venice Baroque Orchestra, with violin soloist Guiliano Carmignola, gives it a gung-ho reading and brings a lot of theatricality to the music. The more I listen to period instruments, the more I like the way younger performers are doing this music. The faster pages can go at speed without sounding muddy or labored, producing a great deal of excitement - and that's what this recording has in spades. It's all there in the sonnet Vivaldi wrote, and it's there in the music as well.įor Vivaldi, it's important to have a period instrument ensemble and a Baroque violin because it allows the performer to play with lighter textures and crisper articulations. Nymphs dance a graceful gigue through the finale as the sun emerges from behind the clouds. Accordingly, "Spring," in the bright key of E major, celebrates the sounds of "joyful bird song," briefly interrupted as "gentle breezes give way to a passing storm." In the slow movement, a shepherd sleeps in the "pleasant flowering meadow," while a dog (the solo viola) barks. Vivaldi wrote an illustrative sonnet as a guide to each of the concertos. Their imagery - of birds in the spring, storms in summer, huntsmen in autumn and icy landscapes in winter - remains as vivid today as on the day the notes were penned. The concertos of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, published in 1725, demonstrate a wealth of effect using nothing more than string instruments. He wrote more than 500 concertos, which make up the bulk of his output, and the techniques he used to keep these works interesting and lively - deftly varying the texture and figuration, and favoring angular, energetic rhythms that packed extra punch - were adopted by composers all over the continent. Known as the "red priest" because of his hair color and his membership in the clergy, Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was the most original and influential Italian composer of his generation.
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