Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Andrew Manze and the English Concert bring Vivaldi to life, 16 Sep 2004
In the 1980s, the English Concert earned a formidable reputation as performers of Baroque music on authentic instruments. They were fortunate to have a superb director in the person of Trevor Pinnock and many brilliant soloists, not least the exceptional violinist Simon Standage. Who can forget their stunning recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the Archiv label?Twenty years on, Andrew Manze has taken over as both the director and solo violinist, and the English Concert have just released their first Vivaldi recording in the post-Pinnock, post-Standage era. I confess that I ordered this CD with some trepidation. Could the English Concert possibly be as good without its two "old masters"? I needn't have worried. Andrew Manze is every bit as accomplished a violinist as Simon Standage, and under his direction, the English Concert continue to play with the verve and vivacity that made them such a joy to listen to in the 1980s. If -- like me -- you're already a fan of the English Concert, then I can reassure you that the spirit of Pinnock and Standage lives on in this recording. If you've never heard the English Concert, or the music of Vivaldi, I recommend this recording to you as an excellent introduction to Baroque music played exactly as Vivaldi would have heard it, played joyfully and with great virtuosity.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb CD, 29 Oct 2004
If only I could look old Vivaldi in the face to see how he would react to the extreme interest being aroused in his music these years. Not least the Italian ensemble Venice Baroque Orchestra opened our eyes to the wealth and variety of Vivaldi's concertos, and now sublime violinist Andrew Manze has taken his newly adopted orchestra, The English Concert, into these Venetian realms as well.And how! This is a superb CD, one of the best I have listened to all year, and a flat contradiction of the prejudice that Vivaldi spent his whole life writing the same concerto over and over again. These specific concertos were written in 1728 for Habsburgian Emperor Charles 6th and they demonstrate that nothing in either technical or philosophical terms was alien to Vivaldi. The third movement of the C major concerto is reassuring as it shows us the buoyantly, irrepressibly melodious Vivaldi, but then there is all the rest. The way Manze on his violin opens the Cantabile, the second movement of the E major concerto, is telling and wonderfully musical, undaunted, matter of fact, in the face of intimidating opposition, you sense, of a metaphysical nature. Manze's violin has the gutsy Baroque sheen that I cannot live without, and with the orchestra he delivers not only great beauty but also an enormous variety of colours and expression. Buy it, Baroque music does not get any better than this.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Vivaldi's best, but brilliantly executed, 1 Dec 2008
'The Emperor' referred to in the CD's title was the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI who, in 1728, visited Trieste, near Vivaldi's Venice. Eagerly anticipating royal patronage, Vivaldi met him and presented him with manuscript copies of concerti known collectively as 'La Cetra' (The Lyre). Remarkably, it took until the 1970s - and that indefatigable musicologist, Michael Talbot - to realise that the concerti were not the same as those published under the same name (The Lyre) as Opus 9. These are completely different.
One of the beauties of this CD is that Andrew Manze not only plays and directs from the violin. He writes the accompanying notes as well - a task he accomplishes with his usual no-nonsense talent. He explains that the reason Vivaldi furnished the Emperor with these concertos and not Opus 9 was probably something to do with copyright. Moreover, manuscript concertos written for a specific individual could be much more experimental than those for a mass, commercial market. Charles VI was an accomplished musician and these concertos consequently make great technical demands on the soloist - witness the improbably high notes of the Paganini-like cadenza in the finale of RV189.
As well as these manuscript concertos allowing for greater artistic freedom than their published counterparts - more conservative in style and less technically demanding for an amateur clientele - it is fair to say that Manze is no stranger to taking creative liberties himself. (The BBC Music Magazine described him as a violinist 'of extraordinary flair and improvisatory freedom'.) Not surprisingly, then, some of the movements here are floridly decorated - like the arabesques of the Cantabile in L'amoroso, RV271. The slow movement of RV277 (Il favorito) is similarly embroidered. Not to everyone's taste, perhaps, but standard Baroque practice. Playing the written parts without any decoration is, arguably, paying false respect to the 'authenticity' of the scores as printed by the pioneering Rinaldi editors of the mid-C20. Rinaldi, apparently, failed to realise that C18 manuscripts didn't bother writing out decorations which would be left to the discretion and talents of the improvising soloist.
The CD isn't all about Manze and decoration, however. The concerti showcase virtuoso violin-playing and Vivaldi's extraordinary innovative skill. Although appearing conservative from a C21 standpoint, these concerti must have been appreciated by his contemporaries for testing the very limits of violin technique. In all probability, not even the enormously talented soloists available in the Venetian Pieta would have had Manze's pyrotechnics at their disposal.
This Harmonia Mundi release presents a full-bodied sound with archlute (William Carter) and a particularly early double-bass (c1630, played by David Gordon) beefing up the continuo. For a taste of Vivaldi at his more adventurous (even if he's not quite at the peak of his inspiration in these concertos) Manze and The English Consort bring you a vivid realisation with a dash of relish.
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~ Antonio Vivaldi
~ Antonio Vivaldi
~ George Frideric Handel
~ Giovanni Mealli
![Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor [Hybrid SACD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZV2ZDA83L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
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