These recordings have already been reviewed on
Musicweb, in CD format, coupled with the Op/3 Concerti, by Johan
van Veen and in the current hybrid SACD format by Dominy
Clements. Both reviewers welcomed them enthusiastically
and I echo their enthusiasm.
There are certain works for which I have been seeking
an ideal recording for many years: Wagner’s Rheingold
is one and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons another. My latest
version of the Wagner, Haitink’s recording, recently reissued
at mid-price by EMI, still doesn’t quite make the grade but
I have a suspicion that this version of the Vivaldi might. One
of the theories about Botticelli’s famous painting La Primavera
is that it enshrines a neo-Platonic message: Mercury pointing
to the skies with his caduceus seems to be reminding us of the
maxim ‘as above, so below’, indicating that the painting is
an earthly paradigm of heavenly harmony; not ideal but as good
as anything on earth can be. The Primavera on this recording,
Spring, the first concerto of The Seasons, is about as
good as it gets ‘here below’ and the remaining Op. 8 concertos
are equally fine.
So is this the version to have - my ‘Building a
Library’ choice as it were? Well, no, because, despite my respect
for the neo-Platonic values of Botticelli, I know that there
can never be one Seasons to rule them all, any more than
there can ever be one universal field-theory of philosophy.
Every version which I have ever heard, even those that struck
me as wrong-headed, has revealed some new aspect of the music.
There have been several notable landmarks in my
search for the ideal Seasons. Like most others of my
generation, I came to know the work from Karl Münchinger’s first,
mono, recording, reissued on Decca Ace of Clubs when he made
his second version in stereo. I became acquainted with Bach’s
Brandenburg Concertos in the same way. We tended to think
of Münchinger as the last word on both composers back then,
though even his later recordings now sound lacking in vitality.
Next came Suzanne Lautenbacher and Jörg Faerber
on Turnabout, much livelier and in stereo, too, for only 17/6
(later raised to 19/11 or 99p.) It seemed excellent value at
the time, but the whole LP played for only around 35 minutes
and that bargain 17/6 would equate to considerably more than
we expect to pay for a full-price CD now.
Though the Turnabout version was made with a small-scale
orchestra, the SW German Chamber Orchestra, there was no sense
of trying to recreate the sound which Vivaldi’s original listeners
would have heard. Even when Neville Marriner and the Academy
of St Martin-in-the-fields came along and took us all by storm,
the scale and style of the performance came closer to authenticity
but there was no attempt to replace the sound of modern instruments.
Nevertheless, the Loveday/ASMF/Marriner, now reissued at mid-price
with three fillers is still highly recommendable: I never hear
it without noting some new felicity which I had missed before
(Decca Originals 475 7531). Their Double Decca recordings of
Op.3, L’estro armonico (443 476 2), Op.4, La stravaganza
(444 821 2) and Op.9, La cetra (448 110 2, with Iona
Brown) are also still very competitive.
The first period-instrument version to make a real
impression was that given by Simon Standage and the English
Concert under Trevor Pinnock, one of the first recordings to
convince me that period-instrument performance did not mean
putting up with cracked notes. It appeared on the eve of the
digital era and I soon traded in my chrome-cassette version
for the CD when it was released, poor value as it was with just
The Seasons. I certainly shall not be getting rid of
that version any time soon; its reissue on the mid-price DG
Archiv Originals label (474 6161) is still highly recommendable,
though the two fillers which have been added still hardly make
it outstanding value. If you like this version and want to supplement
it with a real Vivaldi bargain from DG, the English Concert/Pinnock
5-CD box-set (not including The Seasons) is a snip at
less than £30 in the UK (471 3172).
One innovation on the Pinnock recording involved
the use of a new manuscript version discovered in the Rylands
Library in Manchester. Though offering a less
radical departure from the published text than is the case with
the original and published versions of the Op.10 concertos,
the Rylands MS offers a reminder that it is often impossible
to specify a definitive version of any piece of Baroque music
– Messiah is a prime example of a work which exists in
multiple versions. The notes which accompany the new Arts recording
refer to the Rylands MS without specifying which edition is
used for the recording.
For a long time I supplemented the Pinnock CD of
The Seasons with the Naxos recording of all-but-one of
the remaining Op.8 concertos; that CD, too, is still very worthwhile
– Bela Banfalvi and the Budapest String Ensemble on 8.550189.
The Naxos performers do pretty well but Monica Huggett and
the Raglan Baroque Players under Nicholas Kraemer, on original
instruments, do better. Their performances of the complete Op.8
are available either on a 2-CD set (Virgin Veritas 5 61668 2,
around £8.50 in the UK) or with the Op.9 concertos
on an equally good value 4-CD set. The 2-CD set, though much
cheaper than the new Arts CDs, actually offers two extra concertos,
RV546 and RV516, some 15 minutes in total. It is with this set
that I shall be making my comparisons. In one respect the new
version wins out. The documentation in the Virgin booklet is
rather rudimentary, whereas the Arts booklets are very informative
and even include the original Seasons sonnets in Italian
and English translation.
A preliminary hearing of the new Arts CDs led to
my feeling that this was about as good as it got. If asked for
one word, I would have said ‘lively’. I was very surprised,
therefore, to compare the timings and note that La primavera
is slower in the new version, L’estate and L’autunno
much slower, and only L’inverno actually faster. In fact,
the timings given on the rear insert of the Virgin set are completely
wrong and do not tally with the timings for individual movements
listed inside the booklet.
Comparisons of overall timings, movement by movement,
are difficult to make because the Arts recording tends to vary
the tempo within each movement of The Seasons and the
other named Concertos, La tempesta di mare, Il piacere
and La caccia, in an expressive manner. At least one
reviewer has objected to this in strong terms, describing Montanari’s
solo playing as wilful and capricious. In theory I ought to
agree – I take similar umbrage at the way in which Nigel Kennedy
pulled the music about on his first recording of these concertos
– but I am convinced here. Yes, Montanari speeds up and slows
down in an indulgent manner, but the result is expressive and
it wins me over for one. Perhaps when an ‘authentic’ player
– the word ‘authentic’ is prominently displayed on the CD cover
– like Montanari indulges, it seems much less OTT than when
Kennedy does it. By the same token, I can take indulgence from
Fabio Biondi, whose version of Op.8, similarly mannered, has
won great acclaim, Virgin 5 61980 2, 2 CDs at mid-price.
My initial impression was that the Accademia Bizantina
was a larger ensemble than I am used to hearing in period-instrument
performances of Vivaldi. It sounds larger than the Raglan Players
and the recording produces a rather more powerful bass than
is usual. The booklet lists four first violins, three second
violins, two cellos and one each of viola, violone, harpsichord
(Ottavio Dantone, the director), organ and archlute. For the
first few seconds I wondered if this was going to be a problem
but the problem soon disappeared. DC found the soloist’s unconventional
ornamentation a little off-putting at first – it does sound
rather odd – but, like me, was soon won over. By the time we
get to the graphically-presented barking dog at the beginning
of the second movement I had really decided that I was going
to like this recording very much. As DC says, Pinnock sounds
square by comparison: I’d call Pinnock and Kraemer penny-plain
against tuppeny-coloured.
Some of Vivaldi’s contemporaries, of course, thought
that penny-plain was better and relegated Vivaldi with his effects
to the level of a popular entertainer. Eighteenth-century English
taste far preferred Corelli and Scarlatti but I for one am no
more willing to try to choose between Corelli and Vivaldi than
I am to make the once obligatory choice between Lully and Rameau,
or between Wagner and Brahms. In any case, there is not much
difference between the kind of scene-painting in Vivaldi’s La
tempesta di mare, the fifth concerto in this set, and the
mood music in the slow movement of Corelli’s ‘Christmas’ Concerto,
Op.6/8. And if you are going to paint a picture – why else include
the sonnets in the score, except to set the mood? – you might
as well do it properly. After all, the collection was advertised
as a contest between harmony and invention, invention in the
sense in which it was used by Renaissance orators and musicians
– the power of imaginative discovery, the “highest heaven of
Invention”, as the Prologue to Shakespeare’s Henry V
describes it. No other version brings out the element of contest
so well.
Some of the effects still come off better in other
versions – hence my reluctance to declare this my ‘desert island’
version. For all the power of this version of the opening movement
of L’inverno, for example, Loveday and Marriner still
evoke winter for me more powerfully, “frozen and shivering in
the icy snow” and the raindrops in Dantone’s slow movement are
rather too hastily despatched for my liking. The whole of this
winter is a little too perfunctory and mild for my liking.
I have concentrated on The Seasons because
any set of Op.8 must stand or fall by those first four concertos
– some may even just buy the first CD, which is presumably why
the two are available separately. I urge you, however, not to
ignore the other CD, which is just as well played and recorded
and contains some excellent music. You could supplement the
first CD with one of the cheaper versions of the complete Op.8,
but you would be missing the alternative oboe versions of two
of the concertos, which are enchantingly performed here.
If you want a ‘safe’ version of The Seasons,
go for the Loveday/Marriner or the Standage/Pinnock, depending
on whether or not you prefer period instruments. For a ‘safe’
version of the complete Op.8, Huggett/Kraemer should be your
choice. If you are prepared to live dangerously and purchase
a version which you may find that you sometimes find over-driven,
depending on your mood at the time, the Biondi/Europa Galante
or, better still, these Arts CDs are for you. I shall certainly
keep my older recordings, for the same reason that I have kept
‘safer’ versions of Vivaldi’s Gloria because there are
times when I find Rinaldo Alessandrini’s version of that work
unbearably hard-driven, though there are other times when I
find it exciting beyond words. I’m sure there will be similar
moments when I prefer Kraemer’s or Pinnock’s harmony to Dantone’s
contest in Op.8, but otherwise this is now my version of choice.
Brian
Wilson
see
also Review
by Dominy Clements
