Glad you’re an admirer of Rachel, whose family home is walking distance from mine. I hope you’ll talk about her latest record which should be right up your street: CPE Bach Violin and Piano Sonatas - I have ordered it, and have listened to it on Presto Streaming: seems mighty fine to me! Congrats on the new additions to your family!
I've recently decided that Vivaldi was a choral / operatic composer who also wrote a lot of concertos. His operas in particular are marvelously exhilarating, full of vocal pyrotechnics. The versions by Ensemble Matheus / Spinosi are completely riveting. I'd love you to review some of these masterpieces at some stage.
Of course he wasn’t meant to be a choral composer and sort of fell into it (as per my understanding). For me too he is a masterful vocal/sacred composer.
Something I'd love for you to do sometime is an "essential Vivaldi (excluding The Four Seasons)" recordings survey. You had mentioned L'Estro Armonico in your "If I Could Only Choose One" chat, which was terrific, but it made me realize that for such a household name, I have very little knowledge of his compositional output. It doesn't help that the man about wrote 500 concertos and almost 50 operas -- where does one even begin?
Very good suggestion ! Such a survey should cover his instrumental music, his operas, serenatas, cantatas, and his religious works. A wonderful and not well known music to explore !
Thank you! I'm one of the many who asked for this review--although I'll admit I didn't wait to hear from you. I bought it last week (along with the Biondi set--why not have both?).
You're so right that Vivaldi can take a bit of roughing up. I suppose this is why Claudio Scimone, who elsewhere could seem almost crude, was so wonderfully lively in Vivaldi.
I never found better interpretations of these concertos than by Hogwood or by Pinnock : they constitute, to my point of view, a wonderful balance between older interpretations (I Musici, Scimone ...), and more recent ones (Biondi, Rachel Podger...). But, of course, it is a matter of personal taste.
I absolutely loved all of these recordings and have been collecting them since the time they were first issued.
Glad you’re an admirer of Rachel, whose family home is walking distance from mine. I hope you’ll talk about her latest record which should be right up your street: CPE Bach Violin and Piano Sonatas - I have ordered it, and have listened to it on Presto Streaming: seems mighty fine to me! Congrats on the new additions to your family!
I heard Podger live recently, what a star! I'm glad her recordings are getting good releases.
I've recently decided that Vivaldi was a choral / operatic composer who also wrote a lot of concertos. His operas in particular are marvelously exhilarating, full of vocal pyrotechnics. The versions by Ensemble Matheus / Spinosi are completely riveting. I'd love you to review some of these masterpieces at some stage.
Of course he wasn’t meant to be a choral composer and sort of fell into it (as per my understanding). For me too he is a masterful vocal/sacred composer.
Something I'd love for you to do sometime is an "essential Vivaldi (excluding The Four Seasons)" recordings survey. You had mentioned L'Estro Armonico in your "If I Could Only Choose One" chat, which was terrific, but it made me realize that for such a household name, I have very little knowledge of his compositional output. It doesn't help that the man about wrote 500 concertos and almost 50 operas -- where does one even begin?
Very good suggestion ! Such a survey should cover his instrumental music, his operas, serenatas, cantatas, and his religious works. A wonderful and not well known music to explore !
I have all those Podger albums on their individual releases. For Vivaldi my favorite players are Biondi, Podger, Carmignola and Guglielmo.
Those are my favorites as well. However, my favorite+ is Chauvin with Le Concert de la Loge (2 records on Naïve).
Thank you! I'm one of the many who asked for this review--although I'll admit I didn't wait to hear from you. I bought it last week (along with the Biondi set--why not have both?).
You're so right that Vivaldi can take a bit of roughing up. I suppose this is why Claudio Scimone, who elsewhere could seem almost crude, was so wonderfully lively in Vivaldi.
I never found better interpretations of these concertos than by Hogwood or by Pinnock : they constitute, to my point of view, a wonderful balance between older interpretations (I Musici, Scimone ...), and more recent ones (Biondi, Rachel Podger...). But, of course, it is a matter of personal taste.