If you’re like me and think you’ve heard everything
Vivaldi ever wrote at least once, you may be in for a surprise.
And if you think that you’ve heard everything he wrote worth
hearing, you may be in for an even greater surprise. Some
of these pieces will be familiar from having been played frequently
as orchestral concertos, such as the L’Incoronazione di Dario
Overture. And the last section of Dorilla in Tempe is the
opening of the Four Seasons. But the Overture to La
Verità in Cimento was completely new to me. It is one
of Vivaldi’s very finest works and, if you don’t already have
it, it is worth the price of the disk by itself.
The analogue sound is smooth with good dynamics,
but not close or very transparent, although all the details seem
to be there — the solo violin and harpsichord cadenzas. There
is little stereo spread. Tempi are graceful and not rushed but
a suitably high energy level is maintained.
The last page of the English essay and the first
page of the French essay are missing from the booklet, but if
you read French, you end up getting it all in one language or
the other. The German essay is much curtailed.
In the notes the unnamed English translator (due
to the difficulty described above) has rendered the title l’Estro
Armonico as "Musical imagination let loose" certainly
the most colourful way I’ve heard it put.
In 1978 Claudio Scimone wrote in these notes
that the importance of Vivaldi’s operatic output is "...only
just being realised." Unfortunately in the last 25 years
all we have seen of this is the superb production of Orlando
Furioso by the San Francisco Opera, already a classic on video,
just released on DVD. Some more recent live performances have
been indifferently recorded. But what else have we? When will
Vivaldi’s operatic importance finally be fully realised?
Paul Shoemaker