VIVALDI The Four Seasons (Leila Schayegh)
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Antonio Vivaldi
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Glossa
Magazine Review Date: 11/2019
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 54
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: GCD924203
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(12) Trio Sonatas for 2 Violins and Continuo, Movement: No. 12 in D minor, Variations on 'La Follia', RV63 |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer Daniela Dolci, Director, Harpsichord Leila Schayegh, Violin Musica Fiorita |
(12) Concerti for Violin and Strings, '(Il) cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione', Movement: Nos 1 - 4, 'The Four Seasons' |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer Daniela Dolci, Director, Harpsichord Leila Schayegh, Violin Musica Fiorita |
Concerto for Violin and Strings |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer Daniela Dolci, Director, Harpsichord Leila Schayegh, Violin Musica Fiorita |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
Leila Schayegh’s recording with Musica Fiorita under Daniela Dolci probably comes into the second category, its most prominent oddities being a brief, improvisatory violin solo to introduce each Season and the addition to the orchestra of a bird-warbler and a thunder sheet. For some these idiosyncrasies will already be too irritating to bear. But if you can listen past them, the performances begin to sound like exceptionally vivid descriptive realisations using the materials Vivaldi gave us. That Schayegh has a strong vision is proved by a charming booklet note which augments Vivaldi’s explicatory sonnets with her own impressions of the seasons in her native Switzerland, providing a level of detail and specificity that finds its way into the music with enormous charm. It means you really feel the heart-lifting reanimation of Spring’s showers and rivulets, the battering exchanges of heat and rain in Summer, the colour and excitement of Autumn, and the seductive comforts and discomforts of Winter.
In her recordings to date Schayegh has shown herself a violinist of real quality, so it is no surprise that she plays with silvery-smooth tone and sure-handed virtuosity, or that her ornamentation of the slow movements of Spring and Winter has shapely long lines. Yet I also feel that she has revealed more of her personality here, while at the same managing the trick of making the performance not be all about her. For that, the orchestra is right on her side, enthusiastic and alert to every nuance, although they may have liked a clearer acoustic, while to my ears two harpsichords, two pluckers and a psaltery is too much continuo for a single-string band. The result, though, is still a Seasons worth turning to more than once in a while.
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