The booklet-note to this fourth volume of Vivaldi violin concertos from Naïve implies (unintentionally, I think) that all the works here are from the manuscript the composer presented to Emperor Charles VI under the title ‘La cetra’. In fact only RV391 and RV271 are, while RV263a and RV391 (again) are from the published Op 9, also entitled ‘La cetra’. The rest only appear in the Turin manuscript collection which is the actual subject of Naïve’s great Vivaldi project.

They all, however, appear to be works from the 1720s, a period when Vivaldi left behind the stark energy and economy of his earlier works for something richer and more discursive – what the booklet calls ‘cantabile virtuosity’. If that makes it sound like the proper territory of a silky operator such as Giuliano Carmignola, Riccardo Minasi shows that there is another way, and a fascinating one at that. His virtuosity cannot be doubted and his tone courses like a young stream but a restless imagination looks beyond straightforward niceness and elegance for something deeper, more sharply moulded, in places even darker. In RV327 the Pan-like stamping of the first movement, introspective complaints and reproaches of the second and half-convincing release of the third make a taut little tragedy. RV391, with its scordatura tuning, has an air of glassy menace which runs out into the savage ritornellos of the finale. Some may feel that the delectable L’amoroso lacks its usual grace but the artful bounce and lightness of Minasi’s version hints at new levels of romantic dalliance. This is not really Vivaldi as easy listening and the recorded sound, spare on reverb, is often terse and unlovely. But for anyone wanting a touch of Dionysian poetry, it is a disc worth returning to.