Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

1	The Four Seasons (Il quat
2	The Four Seasons (Il quat
3	The Four Seasons (Il quat
4	The Four Seasons (Il quat
5	The Four Seasons (Il quat
6	The Four Seasons (Il quat
7	The Four Seasons (Il quat
8	The Four Seasons (Il quat
9	The Four Seasons (Il quat
10	The Four Seasons (Il quat
11	The Four Seasons (Il quat
12	The Four Seasons (Il quat
13	Sonata for violin & conti
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
1.	The Four Seasons (Il quattro stagione), concertos (4) for violin, strings & continuo ("Il cimento" Nos. 1-4) , Op. 8/1 - 4 39:37
	Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
	Performed by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Joshua Bell, John Constable and John Constable
2.	Sonata for violin & continuo in G minor, B. g5 ("The Devil's Trill") 14:13
	Composed by Giuseppe Tartini
	Performed by Joshua Bell and John Constable

All Music Guide

When the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields began to popularize Vivaldi's music in the 1970s, it was on the cutting edge with its light, warm chamber orchestra sound, burnished to technical perfection yet sounding completely different from its symphonic cousins. Now, a recording like this one, with star violinist Joshua Bell, sounds conservative in comparison with young bucks like Fabio Biondi on the historical-performance side or even the young Dutch firebrand Janine Jansen. This big-budget (by classical standards) release is the kind of thing you don't see so often now, with a big poster showing Bell carefully decked out in a partially undone tie, as well as individual full-color cards reproducing, in Italian and English, the descriptive seasonal sonnets that provide the program for the four concertos. It could have collapsed under its own weight, but Bell pulls it off. Conducting the Academy strings himself, he forges tight, not-overly-sweet recordings of Vivaldi's four familiar concertos, with a nice contrast between orchestra and solo that showcases his easy, compelling agility and his Heifetz-like sharpness and brilliance. There's nothing fancy about the recording, which resembles in its basic outlines many of those released by mainstream chamber orchestras a couple of decades ago, but it's just extraordinarily carefully and sharply done, with slight broadenings of tempo at the ends of intricate phrases to give Bell space to show his stuff. The programmatic drama of the music is never shortchanged, but never overdone. In a way, with every performer feeling that he or she has to say something new about the "Four Seasons," it's nice to find one who is confident enough not to have to do that. In fact, the one moment where the mood is broken comes when Bell does attempt something unorthodox: the slow movment of the "Winter" concerto (track 11), which he takes a good deal faster than Largo and articulates the cadences in a fussy way. The recording is rounded out by Tartini's "Sonata in G minor for violin and continuo" ("The Devil's Trill"), which has the effect of a release into the realm of spectacular display after the taut beauty of the Vivaldi. It's a recording worthy of Bell's star quality, a fine "Four Seasons" for those not ready to take the plunge into historical performance, and an impressive feat of (mostly) studio engineering. James Manheim

Gramophone

Mighty fine playing. Bell has the lightness and quickness of mercury in passagework, and a smooth and sweet lyricism no less divine in the slower sections. Lindsay Kemp

New York Sun

The Academy has a way with Baroque and Classical music. They remain firmly within interpretive bounds. But they don't forget sound and feeling. And just the same can be said of the soloist, Mr. Bell. We have here a top-drawer recording of "The Four Seasons." The first concerto, "Spring," is crisp, fresh, and delicious. It combines the "lyrical" and the "chordal," the "horizontal" and the "vertical." It is both grand and nimble — just as Vivaldi wants it to be. Jay Nordlinger

Strings Magazine

An innovative, invigorated take on Vivaldi’s classic concertos.