Using manuscript sources in libraries in Turin
and Dresden this lively disc of inspired music by Vivaldi produces
excellent colourful playing from these fine exponents. There
is a huge variety from flutes to mandolins, and natural trumpets
to early clarinets which Vivialdi encountered on his travels
through Germany and Austria. They were intended for all sorts
of formal occasions in Venice and Rome and must have made a
surprising impact with their sheer diversity of instrumentation,
let alone their melodic invention. They all have a formalised
structure juxtaposing a ‘concertino’ or small group of soloists
(generally in pairs) with the full orchestra of which they form
a part but from which they periodically emerge. Most memorable
is the writing for the pair of mandolins in RV558 played here
with energetic gusto which can match any present-day rock group
of guitars. The clarinet (an ancestor of what we know from Mozart’s
day) as used in Paris at the time is still only a two-keyed
instrument and a direct descendant of another instrument also
featured in some of the concerti, the mock trumpet or clarino.
Vivaldi also uses exploits lower sounds giving it a dark, veiled
timbre. It’s a marvellously inventive group of works played
with loving care and dazzling virtuosity by all the members
of this fine ensemble, directed by its leader Philippe Couvert,
whose warm violin playing in the Largo et piacimento,
the central movement of RV555, is stylishly phrased. This same
concerto’s finale is full of contrast, with its pairs of trumpets,
recorders, violas d’amore, cellos and clavecins. The first movement
of RV560 is, surprisingly, for two oboes and two clarinets but
as all four are derivatives of what we know today, it’s hard
to believe one is not listening to brass instruments. The ‘funereal’
concerto RV579 may be sombre but it is not austere, and has
a rather jolly fugue to conclude. Pretty well everyone is involved
in RV556 which concludes the disc on a vibrant note.
These concertos by Vivaldi, the ‘Red Priest’,
can claim a place alongside the great Concerti Grossi of Handel
or the Brandenburg Concerti by Bach. They would be fiendishly
expensive to programme in public concerts with soloists’ fees
payable to so many players, but meanwhile these discs make a
happy substitute.
Christopher Fifield
Académie Sainte-Cécile
