La Serenissima can be relied upon to devise clever and coherent concept albums. This one explores Vivaldi’s operas produced during two dissimilar seasons at Venice’s small Teatro Sant’Angelo: the 171617 Carnival is represented by music from Arsilda and L’incoronazione di Dario, whereas two arias from Motezuma date from 173334. In three contemporary violin concertos, Chandler juxtaposes acrobatics and refinement. Some of these might have been written for Vivaldi to perform as entr’actes during operas, including the elaborate concerto nicknamed Grosso Mogul; the florid virtuoso solo passages in the opening Allegro ma poco poco ooze panache, and in the final Allegro Chandler executes a gigantic cadenza from a manuscript source in Schwerin that he believes most closely transmits Vivaldi’s original version of the concerto.

The three contrasting 171617 arias are performed flawlessly: Argene’s brief yet furious ‘Ferri, ceppi, sangue, morte’ shows off Sally Bruce-Payne’s pinpoint divisions; her crystalline phrasing in Statira’s ‘Sentirò fra ramo’ are matched stroke for stroke by the delicate ‘whispering breezes’ of La Serenissima’s strings. Ramiro’s limpid ‘Quel rossor, ch’in volto miri’ and virile ‘In mezzo alla procella’ from Motezuma each illustrate the influence of the younger Neapolitan school on Vivaldi’s later operatic style. A more rounded story might have emerged had Vivaldi’s other operas for the 173334 season been represented (a pasticcio version of Dorilla in Tempe and the new masterpiece Olimpiade), and Chandler’s erudite notes neglect the dramatic contexts of the arias.