Of the countless recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos on the market, quite a number pair the set with some other work or works devoted to the seasons. Piazzolla's Cuatro Estaciones Porteņos (Buenos Aires Four Seasons) were a popular choice for a while. But English violinist Tasmin Little is onto something new here: a commissioned group of original pieces on the seasonal theme. The Four World Seasons of composer Roxanna Panufnik were written at a rate of one per year between 2008 and 2011 (not 2007, as the ...
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Of the countless recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos on the market, quite a number pair the set with some other work or works devoted to the seasons. Piazzolla's Cuatro Estaciones Porteņos (Buenos Aires Four Seasons) were a popular choice for a while. But English violinist Tasmin Little is onto something new here: a commissioned group of original pieces on the seasonal theme. The Four World Seasons of composer Roxanna Panufnik were written at a rate of one per year between 2008 and 2011 (not 2007, as the track list states) in response to Little's commissions. They are good examples of the style that has made Panufnik one of Britain's most popular contemporary composers, with specific content (here national and pictorial) wedded to a lush, neo-Romantic style that generally avoids sentimentality and maintains a good deal of rigor. Panufnik's four seasons are respectively Albanian (she starts with autumn), Tibetan (with a singing bowl in the orchestra), Japanese (with marvelous bird...
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