The Vivaldi Album Special Edition
(Conducted by: Giovanni Antonini; Performed by: Cecilia Bartoli)
Brilliant performances of the Vivaldi arias by mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli.
Vivaldi: Concerti Per Vari Strumenti
(Zefiro)
Zefiro are a 17-piece ensemble specializing in Baroque compositions that primarily feature wind instruments. On their latest disc, featuring the music of Vivaldi, they open with a stirring C-major two-trumpet work, followed by a minor-key oboe concerto full of plaintive solos. A bassoon concerto, a concerto for two oboes, and more are all played with lively perfection.
Vivaldi: Sonatas for Violoncello
(Anner Bylsma, Francesco Galligioni, et al.)
This new
Sony CD, in which Bylsma is accompanied by an all-Italian complement
of continuo players, was recorded in Vivaldi's Venice, at the
monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. Bylsma has delved deep
into the material, and the six sonatas here--the ones printed in
Vivaldi's lifetime--are played from a new critical edition.
This music is considerably removed from the peppy concerto grosso form
we associate with the composer. If it's not as profound as Bach's
music for the same instrument(s), it's suffused with a comparable
inwardness and brooding. And with his seventeenth-century Venetian
cello (by Goffriller), Bylsma captures the mystery, majesty--and even
the mold--of Venice. He plays this pungent music to its fullest
effect.
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Tartini: The Devil's Trill
(Tartini;Tino Alexander Fjeldi, et al.;Trondheim Soloists; Anne-Sophie Mutter, Conductor)
Mutter delivers another outstanding violin performance, accompanied by the Trondheim soloists.
