Baroque visits tango, one season becomes another or, as Gidon Kremer himself puts it, 'the globe, being round, implies two hemispheres'. We first encountered the idea at last year's Proms and now we have it on disc, coolly attenuated Vivaldi meets hot-headed Piazzolla, both of them bristling with life. Search a little beneath the surface, and there are certain parallels. Both composers alternate fast and slow episodes; both call on similar instrumentation, and in two cases Piazzolla (as arranged by Leonid Desyatnikov) actually quotes Vivaldi, bringing the Red Priest's Winter to his own Summer, then warming a Piazzollan Winter with a touch of Vivaldi's Summer.
This is no crossover, but a creative juxtaposition of disparate styles. New neighbours mean a new lease of life for both, and the switch never jars - mainly because Kremer's dancing, sound-conscious and consistently spontaneous playing style is a common attribute. I've never heard his violin, indeed any violin, sound better on disc - creamy and keen-edged, with every subtle nuance cleanly reproduced.
After Vivaldi's 'Spring', Piazzolla kicks in with 'Summer in Buenos Aires', a darkly dancing tango that soon softens to a characteristic brand of melancholy. Vivaldi's 'Summer' enters on a live wire, sul ponticello, with keen accents and much chirruping among the fiddles. Piazzolla's 'Autumn in Buenos Aires' alternates writing for solo violin and cello whereas Vivaldi's 'Autumn' is bright, fast, freely improvisational and with a marked crescendo over the start of the third movement. 'Winter in Buenos Aires' sets off to a sombre cello solo then, after a violin cadenza, starts to speed up. Vivaldi's Largo ('Winter') has one of the fastest plucked showers I've ever heard - just 1'13'' and with a highly mobile bowed bass line. The sequence ends, as it began, with Spring ... this time 'in Buenos Aires', a devil-may-care mix of yearning, sadness and heady exultation.
I loved it all but if you just fancy hearing Kremer's plucky, versicoloured Four Seasons on its own, you can always programme your CD player to dispense with the rest. Personally, though, I'd play the programme as planned.'