Composer: Antonio Vivaldi
Performer: La Serenissima, Sally Bruce-Payne
Conductor: Adrian Chandler
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avie
Catalogue: AV2287
Release: 2013
Size: 376 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Vivaldi: Sinfonia to L’Incoronazione di Dario for strings & continuo, RV 700
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Andante pianissimo
03. III. Presto
Vivaldi: Arias from Arsilda, RV 700, and L’Incoronazione di Dario, RV 719, for mezzo-soprano, strings & continuo
04. Ferri, ceppi, sangue, morte
05. lo sento in questo sento
06. Sentirò fra ramo
Vivaldi: Concerto Il Grosso Mogul for violin, strings & continuo in D Major, RV 208
07. I. Allegro
08. II. Grave – Recitativo
09. III. Allegro
Vivaldi: Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in B-Flat Major, RV 367
10. I. Allegro mà poco poco
11. II. Andante mà poco
12. III. Allegro
Vivaldi: Arias from Motezuma for mezzo-soprano, strings & continuo, RV 723
13. Quel rossor ch’in volto miri
14. In mezzo alla procella
Vivaldi: Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in C Major, RV 191
15. I. Allegro mà poco
16. II. Largo
17. III. Allegro mà poco
Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima, with virtuoso soloist mezzo-soprano Sally Bruce-Payne, continue their enlightening exploration of the music of Vivaldi focusing on two contrasting eras of the composer’s Venetian operatic career. Vivaldi specialists Adrian Chandler’s and La Serenissima’s hallmark qualities of erudition combined with crowd-pleasing performances have made them one of the best-selling and acclaimed period-instrument bands performing today. Recently their Gramophone Award winning album Vivaldi: The French Connection (AV2178) topped a Forbes list of How to Build a Top Quality Classical Music Library.
Their last release, Venice by Night (AV2257) made the Top Ten of the UK Specialist Classical Chart. Their 11th release for Avie, Vivaldi: A Tale of Two Seasons once again presents the Red Priest in an engaging and fascinating light. Focusing on two Venetian operatic seasons of 1717 and 1733, the enlightening program juxtaposes the work of an eager young man with that of an older, more cunning composer who had adapted his music to that of the fashionable Neapolitan style.
The title A Tale of Two Seasons has nothing to do with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons violin concertos, but rather to two operatic seasons, those of 1717 and 1733, during which the works here might have arisen or at least been used. Due to the chaotic transmission of his music, much of it is difficult to precisely date, but the works here were likely associated with each other in two sets, one from the earlier season and one from the later.
The combination of operatic arias and concertos is authentic, for Vivaldi and perhaps his student Pisendel are known to have performed concertos between acts of at least the first of these operas, and it was in this arena that the crossover of style between opera and concerto that does so much to define Vivaldi’s music seems to have taken place. British violinist Adrian Chandler and his ensemble La Serenissima do very well at bringing the relationships out. The group’s style is a somewhat calmed-down version of the tumultuous operatic-instrumental style perfected by Italian players, and operatic reference such as the recitative-like slow movement of the Violin Concerto in D major, RV 208 (“Il Grosso Mogul”), receive their proper weight.
The concertos, none of them common ones, range from interesting to spectacular. And the differences in Vivaldi’s style between the 1717 and 1733 works here make it especially clear that Vivaldi as much invented as followed the emerging galant manner. The two arias from the incompletely preserved 1733 opera Montezuma make one want to hear more about that work and its presumably Mexican setting. If there’s a weak point here it’s the singing of mezzo soprano Sally Bruce-Payne, who lacks the fire required for the bigger vocal pieces. But in the main this is a state-of-the-art album for those wanting to get deeper into Vivaldi and how his music changed over the course of his career.