Four Seasons – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

A New Excellent Four Seasons Recording by Rachel Podger

Antonio Vivaldi (again)

In my post last week about Vivaldi’s violin concertos where I mentioned that I’m not such a particular fan of the “Red Priest”, I got a lot of reader reactions.

Many of them where trying to convince me that there’s more to Vivaldi, and that he certainly hasn’t written the same concerto 400 times as Stravinsky famously joked.

Well to set the record straight: I do like Vivaldi, kind of. Not all of it, and only in certain doses. And just to prove that I do, I’ll be doing a little mini-series about Vivaldi now.

The Four Seasons (again)

And yes, please don’t kill me if I start with the most overplayed piece of classical music ever (well, in close competition with the opening of Beethoven’s 5th symphony probably).

I’ve written about my favorite version of the four seasons already, it is the version with Giuliano Carmignola. This, to this day, is outstanding. So why do I really need to write about yet another recording (Discogs shows nearly 2,500 entries of this work already…)?

Well, because Rachel Podger just recorded it!

I’ve written about Rachel Podger several times already, e.g. her recent album Grandissima Gravita, her magnificent Mozart sonatas, and her Biber Rosary Sonatas, which won a 2016 Gramophone Award in her category. So be warned, like Gramophone I really tend to like her recordings and hardly ever find fault with them.

Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni – Rachel Podger – Brecon Baroque (Channel Classics 2018)

Vivaldi Le Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons) Rachel Podger Brecon Baroque Channel Classics DSD 2018

So, sorry to repeat myself, but this is yet another outstanding recording by Mrs. Podger.

Her ensemble, Brecon Baroque, isn’t particularly large. This conveys a nice sense of intimacy. The entire recording is extremely nuanced, subtle, but always joyful.

The highlight of the album is the 3 movements of Winter. The Allegro non-molto is even a bit scary, you can feel the shivers of the cold in the opening chords (and I’m writing this on a sunny spring weekend).

And when you get to the second movement of the Winter, the Largo (which has always been a favorite of mine), it is the most “swinging” largo I’ve ever heard, you can really feel yourself taking a nice walk in the sun in a white winter landscape.

So, I’m sure you already have a Four Seasons recording in your collection. If you don’t, this is a must have. if you do, you should still strongly consider this, it is one of the best versions ever recorded, in a very particular and individual style. And as a plus, Channel Classics is known for their excellent recording technique, so this is an audiophile gem as well.

And to top it of, you get two other violin concertos by Vivaldi thrown in (and yes, they don’t all sound the same!).

My rating: 5 stars

You can find it here (Channelclassics), and here (NativeDSD), in both cases you get it in native DSD resolution up to multichannel.

I ended up as usual buying it here (Qobuz, PCM 24/192 only), as with my Sublime subscription it is quite significantly discounted (and no, I’m still not sponsored by Qobuz).

UPDATE April 23, 2018: Gramophone agrees, giving it an Editor’s Choice in it’s May 2018 issue, with this statement: “If ever a disc were self-recommending, this is it: one of today’s most consistently brilliant Baroque violinists, records one of the era’s most famed and engaging works. Enjoy!”. Please note that Gramophone, very much like me, is a bit positively biased on Podger.

My favorite Four Seasons by Giuliano Carmignola with the Venice Baroque Orchestra

Another blog post triggered by the series of blind comparisons on Swiss radio, Disques en lice, the French version, this time. They’ve recently compared 7 versions of the world famous Four Seasons.

Antonio Vivaldi and The Four Seasons

I’ve mentioned previously that I’m not a very big Vivaldi fan. On my personal scale, Bach and even partially Händel are miles ahead of the Red Priest. I wouldn’t go as far as Stravinsky who said Vivaldi had written the same concerto 400 times, he has a point though.

But obviously, you just HAVE to have a version of the world most famous program music, the Four Seasons, in any decent record collection (or music collection to be more generic, does anybody still collect records out there?).

Obviously this has been overplayed to death. But if you haven’t listened to it for a while and actually give it a go again with a fresh ear, there are many beautiful elements in there that makes it worth going back to it occasionally. On my personal playlist it appears about 1 per year.

How to choose a version

Obviously, this work has been recorded a gazillion times. I had chosen my personal preference, the recording by Carmignola below, some time ago after comparing about 20 versions. So take this with a grain of salt, obviously there are many other good recordings out there.

In any case, I was obviously very curious if it would appear in the Disques en lice selection, and how it would compare.

Unfortunately, exactly this recording didn’t appear. However, luckily for me, Carmignola actually recorded the Four Seasons twice, and his earlier recording with the Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca was selected. I was surprised how close these two versions were, in spite of being recorded with 10 years between them.

In a nutshell, that program confirmed my clear preference for Carmignola. The three experts in the program liked it as well, but in the end found it a bit too middle of the road (and they have a point in a way) and preferred in the end the more extreme recordings by Diego Faso’s, very theatrical, worth checking out, but a bit “too much” for me, and Midori Seiler with the Akademie für Alte Musik, a really good recording but I personally don’t like the sound of Seiler’s violin very much).

Carmignola’s 2nd recording of the Four Seasons

So what does Carmignola do? Well nothing special, just everything right, and very right. His Guarneri has a beautiful voice, and the Venice Baroque Orchestra plays with just the right level of energy, speed and drive, and a lot of transparency (which by the way luckily is very well recorded, so you get the same transparency transported very well).

Ah yes, and you also get two world premiere recordings of two previously unknown violin concertos as a filler. But in a way, we’re back here to Stravinsky’s 400 times the same, there don’t really disturb, but I really don’t feel you would have missed anything if these had stayed unrecorded for just a little bit longer.

My rating: Four stars (It’s a true five-star performance though, but I just cannot get myself to give 5 stars to Vivaldi, so just ignore the star rating and get it anyhow).

You can get it here (Prestoclassical) and here (Qobuz).