Vivaldi is played with excitement by Europa Galante, a string and woodwind orchestra 13 strong here. Some collections of Vivaldi concertos can sound a bit monotonous, but not this carefully selected group of emotively titled short pieces. Instrumentation is varied, the playing is enthusiastic and energetic as needed, and the strings really bite in the staccato "Sea Tempest," the waves slapping hard on the boat. The 6-movement "Night" is remarkably eerie and ghostly, particularly if you can cleanse your ears of all the chromatic pieces written since and try to listen with 18th century expectations. RV 234 is full of unsettling "Apprehension" no matter what later music you have heard, displaying a harried and rapidly modulated sense of harmonic uncertainty. The brief notes with the CD are a slightly strange mixture of English and untranslated Italiano. Fresh and well worth listening closely.