Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

[gurnemanz]

Looks like it might have appeared on CD in a different guise. Downloads, including the lossless variety, are available:

http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/viv.../0099925060824

Thanks, Bryn. Slightly different combination - more generous. I now see it is also on iTunes

[Richard Barrett]

... which is this? I can't find it!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7U355Y

It's this one. My mistake! In the booklet is written "Concerti per strumenti a fiato vol.2" and it was past my bedtime.

[Richard Barrett]

And are we to assume that the teenaged girls that played most of his Compositions had the same technical facility? And if they did, I wouldn't care anyway. Let the music breathe a little.

Well, do you honestly think that Vivaldi would train an ensemble to play differently from himself, and in tempi he wouldn't himself use? There are plenty of accounts of how the instrumentalists at the Ospedale were very highly accomplished (nor were they by any means "teenage girls" for the most part). Your idea of "letting the music breathe" seems to be quite different from the composer's, not that this is of any crucial importance of course, but it derives from a time and aesthetic in which Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart and Brahms were all played in the same kind of way, which seems a little perverse if you ask me.

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for the Uffenbach quote, Richard - I hadn't seen that one before, fascinating.

It's in Michael Talbot's Vivaldi monograph, which is an interesting book for things like this but otherwise a bit limited, presumably for reasons of keeping its overall size down.

[Beef Oven!]

Indeed - but how influential it's been!

RF's comment and yours reminded me of a contemporary account from the German merchant Uffenbach, who heard Vivaldi play in 1715 and described his playing thus: "Towards the end [of an opera performance] Vivaldi played a solo accompaniment - splendid - to which he appended a cadenza which really frightened me, for such playing has never been nor can be: he brought his fingers up to only a straw's distance from the bridge, leaving no room for the bow - and that on all four strings with imitations and incredible speed. With all this he astounded everyone, but I cannot say it pleased me, for it was not so pleasant to listen to as it was skilfully executed." (my emphasis)

How strange, I read that last week somewhere, but I can't remember where. I bought a Vivaldi book by H.C. Robbins Landon, but I haven't started it, so it's not from there! Maybe Wiki? Can you tell me where you got it?

Edit: I've just seen post #19 - working my way up the thread, hadn't got to it when I first posted! I obviously don't have that book so I must have read it on Wiki or perhaps a CD booklet, I still am unsure and it's bugging me

[Conchis]

Amazingly, I had no recording of the Stagioni until last week - when i picked up Bernstein's politically incorrect recording for a bargain 75p!

No doubt this is NOT the way Vivaldi should be done and Bernstein was certainly no baroque specialist but I love the way he tears through the piece at lightning speed, never pausing to savour things. John Corigliano is the splendid soloist and I imagine the NYPO of the time, all beer guts and fags stuck in their mouths, shrugging as they turn the pages of their scores.

Great tunes: maybe one day I'll look for deeper meaning in this music, but for now it's great stuff for the car.

[Richard Barrett]

I imagine the NYPO of the time, all beer guts and fags stuck in their mouths, shrugging as they turn the pages of their scores.

A beautiful image to be sure.

Here are two CDs of concerti per molti strumenti which are the best I've heard of this group of works on the strength of a few listens to them on Youtube, and damn it I don't have the discs (yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_8D-nZTkk

[Bryn]

A beautiful image to be sure.

Here are two CDs of concerti per molti strumenti which are the best I've heard of this group of works on the strength of a few listens to them on Youtube, and damn it I don't have the discs (yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_8D-nZTkk

Re-issued, via 24 bit re-mastering(?), replete with Volume 2:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vivaldi-Concerti-Con-Molti-Strumenti/dp/B000LV6CQO/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1461410261&sr=1-1&keywords=Concerti+con+molti+strumenti

[Beef Oven!]

A beautiful image to be sure.

Here are two CDs of concerti per molti strumenti which are the best I've heard of this group of works on the strength of a few listens to them on Youtube, and damn it I don't have the discs (yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_8D-nZTkk

Last night I was searching out what recordings were available by Ensemble Matheus, but I couldn't find this on Amazon. It's available (2 CDs worth) on Qobuz for £16 (16 Bit), but I fancy hard copy.

Edit: I've just seen Bryn's post #23. I'm not with it today, listening to Roger Sessions chamber music way too late last night!

[Richard Barrett]

Re-issued, via 24 bit re-mastering(?), replete with Volume 2

Indeed. Listen to the Youtube and see if you aren't convinced.

[Bryn]

Indeed. Listen to the Youtube and see if you aren't convinced.

Have been dong so since you first posted the YouTube link. I will be downloading from QOBUZ later.

[Beef Oven!]

Have been dong so since you first posted the YouTube link. I will be downloading from QOBUZ later.

I've been listening too and I may well buy. However, I have the Fabio Biondi Europa Galante set, which is a very lively affair indeed! So maybe I should think about putting my money into some other Vivaldi. I also have Il Giardino Armonico's RV 558 In Tromba Marina which, is splendid; customary woodwind playing with loads of scraping and violence on the strings!. But this music as per Ensemble Matheus, does benefit, among other things, from not being taken at 400 MPH!

[BBMmk2]

I have lost touch with Vivaldi's music, as I have quite a bit of late concentrated more on 20th century works, and the kind of music that The sixteen do.

However, I do ofcourse rather like Vivaldi's concerto for two trumpets. I also have Trevor Pinnock's box set of recordings that he has made. I also have the complete sacred music of Vivaldi, on Hyperion. I think a revisit of this period is necessary.

[Beef Oven!]

I have lost touch with Vivaldi's music, as I have quite a bit of late concentrated more on 20th century works, and the kind of music that The sixteen do.

However, I do ofcourse rather like Vivaldi's concerto for two trumpets. I also have Trevor Pinnock's box set of recordings that he has made. I also have the complete sacred music of Vivaldi, on Hyperion. I think a revisit of this period is necessary.

[Richard Barrett]

I've been listening too and I may well buy. However, I have the Fabio Biondi Europa Galante set, which is a very lively affair indeed!

The repertoire isn't quite the same though... you know you want it really...