Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos, arguably the most often performed works in the entire repertory of classical music, stand apart from the rest of his output by virtue of their very popularity. Every group of performers feels the necessity of adding something to the dialogue that surrounds the work. Here Swedish recorder player Dan Laurin and Poland's period-instrument Arte dei Suonatori not only replace the solo violin with a recorder (adding a good deal of new music for the soloist in the process), they also adopt ...
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Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos, arguably the most often performed works in the entire repertory of classical music, stand apart from the rest of his output by virtue of their very popularity. Every group of performers feels the necessity of adding something to the dialogue that surrounds the work. Here Swedish recorder player Dan Laurin and Poland's period-instrument Arte dei Suonatori not only replace the solo violin with a recorder (adding a good deal of new music for the soloist in the process), they also adopt an extremely subjective response to the music, using a style Laurin in his notes traces back to conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his Concentus Musicus Wien. Tempos shift and veer between extremes, seemingly conventional accompanimental parts are put in full regalia and brought out to center stage, and the reigning plan consists of a full-bore attempt to illustrate the composer's detailed poetic program for the music with maximum vividness. One may or may not accept this approach,...
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