Vivaldi - The French Connection 2
La Serenissima
Avie AV2218

Release date June 2011

Yes! At last, following the first disc in this series (issued in 2009), La Serenissima’s eagerly-awaited French Connection 2 has been released - featuring not one but two world premiere recordings! Interestingly, the ‘Gran Mogul’ Concerto for flute, strings and continuo (RV 431a) lay undisturbed and completely lost to modern musicologists and performers until it was discovered here in Edinburgh last year, by local scholar Dr AndrewWoolley in the archives at Register House. As is quite common with Vivaldi’s works, Il Gran Mogul (as in, the Mughal Empire/India) belongs to a group of ‘national’ concertos of which the others, with titles like La Spagna and L’Inghilterro, remain lost. So Adrian Chandler (La Serenissima’s director) has brought the work into a wider context of concertos in a similar ‘French style’. Confused? All is explained in the succinct and scholarly sleeve notes! Each of the concertos presented on this disc is a gem, and for keen Vivaldi listeners there is much to treasure and enjoy. The works are beautiful, the performances sensitive, charming and secure. Highlights include the dark yet hauntingly serene middle movement of the Concerto in A RV 440 (track 9). Essentially it’s the harmonic simplicity and heartfelt unity between the players that makes this so beautiful – lots of static, gently pulsating string chords at the opening before flautist Katy Bircher enters with a melody oozing graceful ornamentation. In total contrast, there is the final movement of concerto RV 473. Structured as a Menuet en Rondeau this is the longest track on the disc and features some eight minutes of truly virtuosic baroque bassoon playing. The final concerto, RV 365 for violin, strings and continuo, is the second world premiere recording and shows a close link to the French Overture style of composers like Lully and Charpentier. Its opening Allegro poco is wonderfully performed with many witty and playful solos from Chandler versus and with the rest of the group. It is followed by another hauntingly still middle movement, this time particularly reminiscent of Correlli and his Concerti Grossi in the use of layered, rising suspensions in the violin parts. Think Venice: quiet, hazy summer morning. In the final movement, the chirpy character of the opening returns with much boisterous, rattling continuo in true La Serenissima style. As Andrew commented at the disc’s Edinburgh launch: ‘It’s amazing what you can find sitting right under your nose; get looking under your beds and sofas – you might just find an 18th-century manuscript!’

Reviewed by Wayne Weaver