Adrian Chandler’s latest Vivaldi collection plays on a trio of associations that have little to do with the musical content but, as in his last release with La Serenissima (“The French Connection”, A/09), throw up a neatly diverse set of concertos, this time variously for violin, two violins, sopranino recorder and bassoon, as well as a rare sonata for recorder and bassoon in tandem. Peter Whelan is again the bassoon soloist, soft of sound, easy of technique and possessed of the lyrical skills to bring depth to the slow movement of RV500. He and Pamela Thorby make a wonderfully free and easy pairing in the Sonata, while in her Sopranino Concerto Thorby shows off her supreme nimbleness and elfin charm; this is music that has sounded coldly mechanical in other hands, yet Thorby’s personality and piper’s box of subtle ornamental tricks give it a vocal vitality. Chandler himself is the soloist in the velvety L’amoroso Violin Concerto, playing it with love all right, if not the hallowed sweetness of Andrew Manze and the English Concert (Harmonia Mundi, 10/04). With La Serenissima offering their usual bright but lightly cushioned sound, this is another disc from them of no-nonsense joy in the Vivaldian world.

In the meantime, Naïve’s mammoth Vivaldi project makes its start on the 39 bassoon concertos with a first volume of seven from Italian virtuoso Sergio Azzolini and newcomer-orchestra to the series, L’Aura Soave Cremona. We must hope that they put the remaining 32 in Azzolini’s hands, too, because this release reveals him to be a Baroque musician on a high level of imagination and inspiration. Like many he makes bold strokes – slowing the music then accelerating away again, relishing the latent jazziness in the opening of RV503, “winding down” the ends of RV495 and 503 – but there is never a hint of gratuitousness or bad taste. In music that everyone knows can sound routine, he shapes and characterises every movement, seeks out hitherto unremarked beauties, makes it speak. He is clearly not kidding when he says he sees “demoniacal apparitions” in RV495 or envisions the lagoon in RV493 and 484, but he does not hit the listener over the head with such ideas; rather he uses them to make these concertos all the more attractive and fascinating. This is music-making to cherish.