Also, Concertos 8
and 9 of Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione. Giovanni Antonini, Il
Giardino Armonico, Milano. Teldec Classics/Warner Classics 2564 64763-0.
You can find recordings of Vivaldi’s Le Quattro stagioni (The Four
Seasons) performed on period and modern instruments in arrangements for
chamber orchestras, full orchestras, guitar ensembles, wooden blocks, tin
drums, and glockenspiels. My own preference is for period instruments and a
number of players that approximates what Vivaldi had in mind when he wrote it,
so this release from Warner Classics of a 1993 recording by Giovanni Antonini
and Il Giardino Armonico nicely fills the bill. The fact that they do it up
quite inventively helps, too.
That said, let me continue by saying that while Il
Giardino Armonico play the Seasons
splendidly and while I like period instruments, I’m not entirely sure any
orchestra in Vivaldi’s day would have performed the concertos this way.
Armonico’s way with them is, to say the least, unusual by today’s standards. Of
course, they represent probably what any modern listener would want in a
recording, considering that there are already hundreds of other, more
conventional versions available. However, in the long run I’d consider the
rendition of things by Il Giardino Armonico (“The Harmonious Garden”) primarily
an addition to one’s other recordings of The
Four Seasons rather than being one’s
only recording.
Even though Italian violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi
(1678-1741) wrote hundreds of pieces of music, most folks probably only
recognize him for his Four Seasons
violin concertos, those little tone poems with their chirping birds, galumphing
horses, barking dogs, dripping icicles, and howling winds. Meant to accompany
four descriptive sonnets, they make up the first four sections of a longer work
the composer wrote in 1723 titled Il cimento
dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The
Contest between Harmony and Invention). People hardly remember the other
concertos in the set.
I recall reading years ago that in Baroque times
orchestras usually played fast movements slower than they do in subsequent eras
and slow movements faster. Later, I read just the opposite. In any case, Baroque
orchestras would probably have emphasized tempo contrasts among movements more
vividly than we do today. If that’s the case (and it’s a case still debated),
then Il Giardino Armonico must stand firmly behind contrast because they
definitely fill their Seasons with
differences and deviations from the norm. What’s more, they tend to overplay
Vivaldi’s descriptive elements, making this an entertaining but decidedly
unusual Four Seasons, one that will
delight some listeners and infuriate others.
We hear from Spring
onward that the Il Giardino Armonico players not only emphasize tempo changes
from movement to movement but practice a volatile rubato within movements with
their extreme ritardandos and accelerandos, often along with magnified
dynamics. The effect is dramatic, to be sure, and fun, but Antonini and his
team never convinced me that this is the way Vivaldi or his contemporaries
might have performed things.
Anyway, Armonico’s two most persuasive movements are in
the Summer and Fall concertos, the former because the playing is the most
creative, the latter because the slight hyperbole seems best to fit the
occasion of drunken peasants, baying hounds, fleeing animals, dancing, and
singing. Armonico’s most traditional reading is of the first, Spring Concerto, wherein the players
take things easy. Compared to the other concertos, it actually sounds a little
mundane.
Where Armonico’s style works least best is in Winter. Here, ensembles over the years
have interpreted the opening moments of the first movement either by following
the accompanying sonnet to the letter, that is, first slowly shivering in the
cold and then quickly running and stamping to keep warm, with abrupt tempo
changes between the two; or maintaining a more consistent tempo throughout. Obviously,
the Armonico group elect the first option, making the shivering very slow and
deliberate and the running fast and exuberant. But it’s the slow, second
movement that may seriously annoy some listeners. It’s one of Vivaldi’s most
amiable, most comforting tunes, a warm, cozy number suggesting folks sitting
inside a cottage by the fire, free from the wind and snow. Vivaldi intended it
as a Largo and marked it “peaceful
and content.” With Il Giardino Armonico the music sounds like another Allegro, racing along pell-mell and
losing most of its charm in the process.
We get some fine playing from the members of Il Giardino
Armonico but especially from first violinist Enrico Onofri. Moreover, the
disc’s two other pieces, Concerto No. 8
in G minor and Concerto No. 9 in D
minor, also from Il Cimento
dell-Armonia e dell’Inventione, make excellent couplings because we don’t
hear them often enough, and their creativity is boundless. Then, too, without
having to compare them to a ton of other recorded interpretations, they seem
just right. These certainly come off as spirited realizations.
So, in the end, for whom might Teldec/Warner Classics have
intended this rerelease? It’s not my business to make guesses or to tell people
what to buy, but if pressed I’d say the two primary audiences are (1) folks who
already have 800 copies of The Four
Seasons on their shelves and are looking for something unique to break the
monotony; or (2) folks who have never cared much for The Four Seasons and need something as captivating as this one to
get them excited. Still, as I said before, I wouldn’t want Il Giardino
Armonico’s interpretation as the one-and-only album in my library but as a
supplement to period-instruments recordings by the likes of the Philharmonia
Baroque Orchestra (PBP), La Petite Bande (Sony), the Drottningholm Baroque
Ensemble (BIS), the English Concert (DG Archiv), or Tafelmusik (Sony). I think
these other recordings are safer bets than Il Giardino Armonico, just as
entertaining, and at least as well or better recorded.
Producer Wolfgang Mohr and engineer Lucienne Rosset
recorded the music for Teldec at Lugano, Radio della Svizzera Italiana (RTSI)
Studio 1 in 1993. Warner Classics released it 2013. There is some discussion in
the booklet notes about Il Armonico’s choice of pitch, suggesting that if they
had followed Venetian practices, the result would have been too “brilliant and
aggressive.” Fair enough, except that the sound still appears to favor the high
end slightly and might still appear too brilliant and aggressive depending on
one’s speakers. It’s not excessively bright, though, just a little light, and
this small degree of brightness may even contribute to the overall clarity of
the sonics.
The miking is fairly close-up, providing good definition,
if not the most entirely realistic perspective. The recording doesn’t offer a
lot in the way of room resonance or ambience, either, but, as I say, it does
supply good, clean, clear playback. Additionally, the small number of Il
Giardino Armonico players (about ten) contributes to the sound’s transparency,
as do the recording’s quick transient response and taut impact.
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:
JJP
