Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor

1	Violin Concerto, for viol
2	Violin Concerto, for viol
3	Violin Concerto, for viol
4	Violin Concerto, for viol
5	Violin Concerto, for viol
6	Violin Concerto, for viol
7	Violin Concerto, for viol
8	Violin Concerto, for viol
9	Violin Concerto, for viol
10	Violin Concerto, for viol
11	Violin Concerto, for viol
12	Violin Concerto, for viol
13	Violin Concerto, for viol
14	Violin Concerto, for viol
15	Violin Concerto, for viol
16	Concerto per la solennità
17	Concerto per la solennità
18	Concerto per la solennità
Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor
1.	Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in C major, RV 189 17:04
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by Andrew Manze and English Consort
2.	Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in E major ("L'amoroso"), RV 271 11:28
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by English Consort and Andrew Manze
3.	Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in C minor, Op. 11/5, RV 202 13:05
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by English Consort and Andrew Manze
4.	Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in C major ("La cetra" no. 7), Op. 9/7, RV 183 9:29
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by English Consort and Andrew Manze
5.	Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in E minor ("Il favorito"), Op. 11/2, RV 277 13:16
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by English Consort and Andrew Manze
6.	Concerto per la solennità di S Lorenzo, for violin, strings & continuo in F major (also attributed to J. G. Graun), RV 286 14:22
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Conducted by Andrew Manze
	Performed by English Consort and Andrew Manze

Barnes & Noble

Violinist Andrew Manze has been associated with some of England's finest period instrument orchestras. In 1996, for example, he recorded a vibrant program of Vivaldi concertos with the Academy of Ancient Music. Here's another ingenious Vivaldi album, this time featuring the English Concert (an ensemble founded by Trevor Pinnock and directed by Manze since 2003). The music on this disc comes from a set of manuscript parts for the collection of 12 concertos known as "La Cetra" (Vivaldi's Opus 9), which were given to Charles IV, whom Vivaldi met in Trieste in 1728. What's interesting -- and only recently discovered -- is that the manuscript version of Op. 9 is quite different from the published edition. Why two versions? Scholars don't know for sure, but in his liner notes, Manze suggests that Vivaldi left unpublished his most experimental music and may have intended the manuscript as a gift to a musical connoisseur. Certainly the concertos here, all recorded for the first time, are a great deal more intricate and harmonically daring than those of "La Cetra" that Vivaldi aficionados are familiar with. Manze and his London-based band revel in the music's remarkable details, and the violinist adds virtuoso flourishes of his own. (Note, for example, the dizzying cadenza that caps the finale of RV189.) Recorded with usual sumptuousness by Harmonia Mundi and gorgeously packaged, this is a major addition to Vivaldi's discography. Andrew Farach-Colton

All Music Guide

No, not more Vivaldi "Violin Concertos"! How can there be any more? Have not decades of scholarships overturned every possible rock to find every possible violin concerto by the composer of "The Four Seasons," everybody's perennial favorite? Although the answer is apparently not, that is, in fact, good news: that there are still more lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and mind-bogglingly difficult "Violin Concertos" by Vivaldi should warm the hearts and open the wallets of classical music lovers around the world.

And that is not all the good news. The really good news is that seven more-or-less new "Violin Concertos" by Vivaldi have been recorded by super-virtuoso Andrew Manze leading the super-fine English Concert. And while none of them, not even the super-sultry "L'amoroso," will make most listeners shed their allegiance to Vivaldi's four greatest hits, all of them are in truth just as lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and perhaps even more mind-bogglingly difficult "Violin Concertos" that Manze dispatches with his by now customary panache and aplomb. Yes, more Vivaldi "Violin Concertos"! Harmonia Mundi's digital sound is vivid and immediate. James Leonard

Gramophone

The six [concertos] presented here, it seems to me, show Vivaldi in his grandest and most magnificent vein, and exceptionally varied in mood.... I don't think I've enjoyed a Vivaldi disc so much for years.... This is violin playing of an extremely high order from Andrew Manze.... An outstanding CD in every way. Stanley Sadie