Every year brings its four seasons and there are good, bad and indifferent years; on record it also brings many more, similarly classifiable cycles as portrayed by Vivaldi. Some of the latter are painted with period instruments but others, including the two on hand, are not—those we are wont to describe as 'middle of the road', many of them very liveable-with, couth, kempt and shevelled but with little to distinguish them from numerous others. Uto Ughi's recording inhabits the upper end of this centre-line group: his playing is clean, his tone has the sheen and smoothness of fine silk, and the threads of his lines are always spun with the appropriate gauge. Graceful, poised and often poetic are words that fit these refined performances.
The number and identity of the Virtuosi di Santa Cecilia are not disclosed (the harpsichordist's very presence is more often concealed than revealed), a fate they do not deserve; they are both attentive and keenly responsive, particularly impressive in the range of their dynamics and the clarity of articulation and firmness of their rhythm when working at its hushed, lower end. Ughi presents the score as it is and, though a few trills come close to starting on the main note, admirably in style. The same may be said of RV356, with its beguiling slow movement, a concerto that has certainly not suffered over-exposure on record. The annotational statement, that it ''was not taken by Bach for keyboard transcription'' seems curiously negative and something of a non sequitur in its context; the German translator carefully circumvents it.
In today's market place The Four Seasons do not in themselves add up to an adequately filled disc; the recognition of this fact provides another means of giving a recording another plus factor in meeting the competition—as RV356 does in the above case. The Helios recording offers another, novel solution, and without recourse to any other work. Each concerto is preceded by a sonnet, of unknown authorship, and their texts are usually supplied in the annotation, but here they are read—first, soulfully, in the original Italian, and then, less demonstratively (as befits the language) in English translations (made by the reader of the Italian). You may feel, as I do, that hearing them as a part of every performance is not an experience that will wear well; if so, the readings may easily be programmed out or skipped en route. In that event, what are you left with? Quite simply, a magnificent recording of the music. Adelina Oprean, a 'rising star' for sure in the fiddling firmament, brings to the music all the freshness of her youth and benefit of her technical skill. In her playing there is excitement, fantasy and, no less, acute sensitivity to both expression and style, the last extending to a little judicious embellishment in the slow movements of I and IV. Sharp contrasts make these vividly dramatic performances—and does anything we know of Vivaldi suggest that he favoured bland ones?
The ECCO, under Faerber, are clearly fired by Oprean's presence, shadowing every change in her mood and pace: the violas' bows bark pictorially (but not too loud) in I/2, there is hard ice on the opening staccatos of IV/1, and two movements later the winds blow with real fury. The first-rate engineering is appropriate to another, but not 'just one more', excellent recording of The Four Seasons.'