It is over a decade now since Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica introduced us to this unusual interleaving of works, made possible by Leonid Desyatnikov’s string-orchestra arrangements of Piazzolla’s four tango seasons. It is a great idea for a concert and, having toured it around, Kremer duly made a recording for the Nonesuch label which went down well in these pages.

As it happens, this new recording was made at a concert at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, although strangely a sense of the occasion is hard to detect. The playing standard is excellent, with the strings of the Scottish Ensemble finding a light and suitably transparent texture in the Vivaldi, matched by bright, stylish solos from Jonathan Morton, but in pieces as much-recorded as these, their performances are some way from being the most exciting or evocative. For all the fierce fury with which they rain down the summer and winter storms, too often onward movement is allowed to drift away (for instance in the finale of Spring). In short, in what is probably the most brilliantly descriptive music of the Baroque, they lack atmosphere.

Can they do better in the Piazzolla? At first, gritty tone and some punchy accents suggest that they will but ultimately, in music that should be as strongly suggestive of Buenos Aires as Vivaldi’s is of Venice, the results are just that bit colourless and, well, unsexy. A comparison with the Kremer original reveals what is missing. With an orchestra twice as big and recorded in a less analytical acoustic, Kremer’s faster tempi give the Piazzolla a sense of danger, while also bringing the romantic slower tunes the louche warmth they need. And if his Vivaldi is not particularly “Baroque” in sound, many will appreciate its richer string tone and stronger personality.