If Naxos mean to go on as they have started then this complete Edition of Vivaldi’s orchestral music will not be so long in the making. Here, in an initial gesture, is the complete run of Vivaldi’s concertos for cello and strings – 27 of them, contained on four discs – and seven miscellaneous concertos, all but one of which are for solo wind instruments and strings.
Naxos have made a sound investment in director Nicholas Kraemer who has not had his fair share of the still burgeoning market in commercially recorded baroque music. His feeling for the repertoire is intuitively stylish and his lively response to it infectious both to the listener and to those with whom he works. Whilst it is a pity that he is not directing his own Raglan Baroque Players, a period-instrument ensemble of proven excellence, the City of London Sinfonia led by Andrew Watkinson nevertheless respond appealingly to Kraemer’s direction from the harpsichord/organ and are, after all, no strangers to eighteenth-century music.
After Bach, it was Vivaldi who best served the interests of the baroque cello with nine expressive sonatas for the instrument, the 27 above-mentioned concertos, numerous other concertos in which it assumes a concertino role, and a handful in which it features as but one or a pair among a disparate group of soloists. The rich variety of rhythmic and melodic ideas present in the cello concertos alone should be sufficient to lay to rest some of those fatuous generalizations about Vivaldi’s concerto style. For the most part they are quite manifestly unlike one another, though we often need to explore beneath the surface to savour the expressive fantasy of the music. Soloist Raphael Wallfisch lets few details slip by unnoticed though, faced with so many concertos to record in a comparatively short time, he inevitably responds with greater conviction in some works than in others. His tone is warm, his intonation mainly excellent and his ability to shape phrases with a feeling for poetic scansion a recurring delight.
Few readers, perhaps, will want to buy all four discs at once, though at around £5 each, and considering the musicianly performances, there can be little cause for complaint. But for those searching for a single disc representing this first-rate department of Vivaldi’s genius I shall recommend Vol. 2. Not only does it contain the beautiful Concerto in G minor for two cellos (RV531), in which Wallfisch is expressively partnered by Keith Harvey, but also an immensely engaging and stylistically forward-looking G major Concerto (RV413), and a melancholy one in C minor (RV401) with an affecting slow movement, the work through which, in a performance with Vincenzo Altobelli and I Musici (Philips, 12/58 – nla), I first became aware of Vivaldi’s cello concertos, 38 years ago.
The remaining disc of the survey, on the grounds of the variety of instrumental colour it affords, is likely to appeal to a wider readership. The Concerto for two trumpets (RV537) has long been a favourite with audiences, though my own preferences lie with the two Concertos for pairs of horns (RV538 and RV539), less frequently performed but happily both present here. One of them, RV538, holds a surprise for the unsuspecting listener in its lyrical slow movement, not for horns but for solo cello with continuo. These concertos are splendidly played by Stephen Stirling and Tim Caister (horns), as indeed are the remaining pieces in the programme.
In summary, this is an auspicious start to the Kraemer/Watkinson/City of London Sinfonia element of the Naxos Vivaldi Edition. Many of the lessons taught by the period-instrument revival have been taken heed of, while others clearly have been rejected; but, casting details aside, what we have here are performances which revel in the vitality of Vivaldi’s music and which are sensible to its beguiling but all too often overlooked fantasy.'