Musica Barocca

Founded in 1985 in Milan, Il Giardino Armonico was one of Italy's earliest period instrument groups. Directed by Giovanni Antonini, who also acts as solo flutist, it consists of about 30 players, all highly accomplished and, to judge from their photograph, appropriately taken in what looks like the garden of a country house, all young. Many of them take solo turns, most prominently the concertmaster, the wind players, and the lutist. Their style is very "baroque," with lower pitch, speedy tempos, especially in fast movements, clipped articulation, lots of swells as well as sudden contrasts, and lavish, imaginative ornamentation.

The program, except for improvised variations on "Greensleeves" for solo lute, is all-Baroque and a bit strange. It opens with Bach's Suite No. 3 in a brilliant, exuberant performance, enhanced by a Trumpet Consort from Innsbruck, and then alternates complete concertos for various single and multiple solo instruments with short works, including separate movements. This produces variety but also frustration: the playing is so good that one wants to hear the rest of the piece. Apart from the Bach, Purcell's G-minor Chaconne and the Pachelbel Canon are most familiar. A Vivaldi Concerto for flautino (a sort of piccolo recorder) is a bravura showpiece, but the instrument sounds like a mechanical bird. Also notable are a somber, dramatic Oboe Concerto by Marcello, and several lovely slow movements, including one by Telemann and three by Albinoni. Surprisingly, the saddest and most dissonant of these brings the program to a very mournful close. --Edith Eisler

Vivaldi: Recorder Concertos

Stravinsky famously quipped that Vivaldi didn’t write 400 concertos, rather he wrote one concerto 400 times. Rather unfair, though witty. For many people though, Vivaldi is the composer of The Four Seasons (the first four of the twelve concertos Op.8), and maybe the famous Gloria. He is a composer who repays closer attention. There are some superb concertos in his large output, and some of them were sufficiently striking enough to attract the attention of J.S. Bach and Johann Quantz.

His concertos are remarkable not only for the wealth of invention and the outstanding quality of the music, but also for the amazing range of instruments he wrote for. This CD is devoted to concertos for sopranino and alto recorders. Two of his greatest concertos ‘Tempesta di mare’ (Storm at Sea) and ‘La notte’ (Night) feature on the programme.

La Passion Lemieux

This special project features the finest opera arias recorded by Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux for Naïve, ranging from Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart to Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Berlioz. It gathers tracks from 6 recordings released between 2003 and 2012, resulting from collaborations with some of the finest orchestras of the time: Il Complesso Barocco, Ensemble Matheus, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre National de France. Only one motto for Marie-Nicole: passion!

Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Cellos

Classic FM’s Albums of the Year 2014: # 20

"Kicking off our 2014 top 20, it’s a poignant release for cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (duetting with his wife), who announced his retirement from performance due to a nagging shoulder injury. This recording, sprightly and full of life, shows that his leaving the industry came very much too soon." --Classic FM, November 2014

 

The first arranger of Vivaldi’s concertos was Vivaldi himself, and Julian Lloyd Webber’s new versions in this recording reflect the composer’s pragmatic attitude and zest for experiment. Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor RV 531 is his only original concerto for two cellos. Alongside this appear works both popular and recently discovered, the mercurial moods of the cellos representing instruments from mandolins to hunting horns.

Piazzolla’s Milonga displays all of his most distinctive hallmarks. Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber’s acclaimed album A Tale of Two Cellos can be found on Naxos 8573251. This release follows Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber’s highly successful album A Tale of Two Cellos (8573251), with its two cellos “beautifully played and blended together” (Gramophone) and considered a thing of “rare beauty” by The Strad. This recording of Vivaldi concertos will have poignant associations and special value for Julian’s many fans, as he has since been forced to withdraw from performing due to injury. Vivaldi’s ever popular music dressed anew by such an internationally outstanding artist is a guarantee of global interest and very substantial sales.

Album Reviews

Italian Trumpet Concertos & Arias for Trumpet and Soprano

“The Marcello Concerto is lyrically phrased, positively languid in the first movement, and his lines are infused with energy and a controlled, even articulation. Soberly accompanied by tight chamber orchestral playing, the other Venetian concertos are also admirably contained in their assiduity and stylish elegance. The duets with the fine soprano, Mojca Erdmann, are universally delightful.” -Gramophone, November 2009

This interesting release features works by Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Marcello, Baldassare, Tartini, Galuppi and Albinoni.

The listener familiar with the works of Torelli and the other common examples of Baroque trumpet music may be surprised to see the diverse list of composers represented on this Swiss-German release. In fact not one of the nine works on the album precisely qualifies as an "Italian trumpet concerto." The five concertos included were all written for other instruments, mostly an oboe, although Albinoni's Concerto in B flat major, Op. 7/3, is indeed best known in the trumpet version heard here. It takes a modern trumpet to play any of these works; although annotator Anette Unger correctly notes that transcriptions made solo instruments interchangeable for many works, the concertos wouldn't have been thought suitable for the trumpet in their own time.

The valveless Baroque trumpet was a much less agile but more martial instrument than its modern counterpart. The arias by Scarlatti, Vivaldi (from the Gloria, RV 589), and Baldassare Galuppi, by contrast, did actually involve the fiery juxtaposition of soprano and trumpet. The performances here by Hungarian-German trumpeter Gabor Tarkövi, soprano Mojca Erdmann, and the Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra smooth over the differences among these works with smooth, technically well-controlled readings augmented by audiophile-quality sound. It's an old-school Baroque trumpet recording, calculated to display the capabilities of the trumpet soloist with lots of sunny diatonic music and crisply executed ornaments. The music is best suited for general listeners rather than for those specifically interested in the Italian Baroque concerto, but Tarkövi, especially, succeeds on the album's own terms. --Allmusic.com