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Antonio
VIVALDI (1678-1741) The Rise of the North Italian Violin
Concerto: 1690-1740, Volume 2.
Concerto for violin, strings and continuo
in B flat, RV 370 (?1716) [12:22]
Arias, for soprano, strings and continuo,
from La costanza trionfante degl’amori
e degl’odii, RV 706 (1716)
[10:34]
Concerto for violin, two violoncellos,
strings and continuo in C, RV 561 (1728?)
[9:33]
Concerto/Sinfonia for strings and continue
in E, RV 134 [6:19]
Concerto senza cantin, for violin,
strings and continuo in D, RV 243 [10:33]
Arias for soprano, strings and continuo,
from La fida ninfa, RV 714 (1732)
[12:08]
Concerto for violin, strings and continuo
in E flat, RV 254 [14:48]
Adrian Chandler (violin, director), Mhairi
Lawson (soprano), Sarah McMahon, Gareth
Deats (cello), La Serenissima.
rec. 4-7 March 2007, Studio 1, The Warehouse,
London.
All texts and translations included.
AVIE AV 2128 [76:38]
It is, of course, a fallacy - though
refinements of it are still encountered
quite frequently - to propose that full
justice can only be done to certain
kinds of music, or to certain composers,
when the music is performed by what
one might call ‘native’ musicians –
that Tchaikovsky is always best at the
hands of Russian orchestras and conductors,
that Elgar and Vaughan Williams require
British forces. So much of a fallacy,
indeed, that one might reasonably argue
the opposite case: ‘foreign’ performers
can bring to music new perspectives
and insights gained from experiences
and knowledge which are, to some extent,
outside the composer’s own tradition,
and thus avoid any danger of parochialism.
Just as many of the best Shakespearean
productions of recent years have been
the work of companies and directors
from outside Britain.
Yet it is true that
‘native’ forces can sometimes provide
valuable, even revelatory, reminders
of things that the international interpretation
of a composer may have forgotten, or
been in danger of forgetting. Certainly
in recent years, Italian musicians –
such as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Fabio
Biondi and Giuliano Carmignola – and
ensembles – such as Concerto Italiano,
Europa Galante, Sonatori de la Gioisa
Marca and the Venice Baroque Orchestra
– have brought to the performance of
Vivaldi’s music a rejuvenating fire
and energy, a style of performance rich
in eloquent inflections and nervous,
scintillating rhythms, a manner full,
in short, of Mediterranean vivacity,
Vivaldi played with much of the energy
and vivaciousness that characterise
Italian conversation and street-life,
but never at the cost of technical assurance
and sophistication. Some non-Italian
performances of the violin concertos
can sound rather lack-lustre in the
context of such as Biondi and Carmignola.
But that is not the case, I am pleased,
to report, in the work of Adrian Chandler
and La Serenissima on this disc, the
second volume of their three volume
survey of the North Italian violin concerto
(see review
of volume one).
Chandler brings to
his performances both imagination and
scholarship; he has recently been the
recipient of a three year fellowship
from the Arts and Humanities Research
Council to study the development of
the violin concerto in Northern Italy
in the years between 1690 and 1740.
He and La Serenissima play with the
kind of energy, verve and colour we
have heard from the Italian ensembles
mentioned earlier, and with a similar
degree of apt inventiveness. In short,
this British group matches up to the
standards the Italian Vivaldians have
set in recent years, in performances
which are richly communicative and committed.
The music is individualised without
distortion, played very much from within,
clearly the work of musicians utterly
at home with Vivaldi but who never allow
that familiarity to lapse into mere
routine - the curse of much inferior
playing of Vivaldi.
In RV 370 the ‘virtuoso’
element of the CD’s subtitle (Virtuoso
Impresario) is certainly well in
evidence; Adrian Chandler’s booklet
note aptly points out that a copy of
this concerto survives in the Sächsische
Landesbibliothek in Dresden, in the
hand of the violin virtuoso Johann Georg
Pisendel. Chandler negotiates the concerto’s
demands with considerable élan,
and his own cadenza, unsurprisingly,
is thoroughly Vivaldian in spirit. The
energy levels are perhaps not sustained
quite so absolutely in RV 561, though
by all but the very highest standards
this, too, is a fine performance. No
reservations whatsoever about either
RV 134 or RV 254; in each case the central
slow movement is played with loving
attention to both line and colour and
the closing allegros are little masterpieces
of subtle rhythmic interplay, the accents
by turns predictable and unpredictable,
the sense of vocal-operatic phrasing
attractive without ever being exaggerated.
RV 243 is a slight oddity, the violinist
being instructed to play without the
E string (senza cantin) and to
tune up his bottom string a whole tone
in the finale, so as to provide a pedal
note in a long passage of bariolage
writing. Again the slow movement is
lovely, played with winning eloquence
and sensitivity.
Much of Vivaldi’s writing
for the solo violin in these concertos
has affinities with his writing for
the opera, and it is fitting that these
performances of a selection from the
concertos should be interleaved with
operatic arias. There is much to choose
from amongst Vivaldi’s operatic compositions:
so much so that the three arias from
La costanza trionfante degl’amori
e degl’odii here receive
their first ever recordings; in these
and the two arias from La fida ninfa
the soprano soloist is the admirable
Mhairi Lawson. She is heard to especial
advantage in ‘Dolce fiamma’ from La
fida ninfa, her voice full of melting
tenderness, the strings of La Serenissima
supporting her exquisitely, and in ‘Alma
oppressa’ from the same opera, full
of stunning coloratura, a demonstration
piece which spectacularly demonstrates
the abilities of both composer and performer(s).
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