Vivaldi was never slow to recognize a good musical thing when he saw it, hence the exploitation of the plethora of talent at the Pieta in his numerous double concertos. In his notes Michael Talbot says that 25 are for two violins (Ryom lists 26), of which more than half have no currently listed recording, and two (RV505 and 511) are available only on this disc. Neither are all the others recorded, so there is still plenty of mileage left in the double-concerto format. RV505 and 511 are later, mature works, the former with distinct galant leanings and the latter with flanking movements interrupted near their ends by serious minor-mode reflections, one of Vivaldi's ways of inducing a sense of unity. RV554 is really a triple concerto, originally for violin, oboe and organ (as it is recorded by the Tate Music Group on Unicorn-Kanchana) which Vivaldi reworked, giving the upper line to a second violin and leaving the bass to the continuo.
A number of Vivaldi's double concertos offer less-than-notable musical substance, but this may not be said of any on this recording. Collegium Musicum 90, crisp in ensemble, play stylishly and, with a string band of modest size (4.4.2.3.1), laudable leanness of sound. The soloists too are excellent, not least the oboists—who reassure one that all was by no means lost when David Reichenberg died. The ravishing Largo of the Double Cello Concerto is in ''a binary form in which neither section is repeated'' (so the annotation has it), but rarely is either one or both not repeated: my only mild disappointment is that Jane Coe and David Watkin who repeat both sections, do comparatively little to enhance its pathos through embellishment of the kind that makes the version by Anthony Pleeth and Anner Bylsma with the AAM on L'Oiseau-Lyre one to be treasured. The present recording is of exemplary clarity and balance, with the continuo players in appropriate evidence.'