The combination of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos with the Cuatro estaciones porteñas of Astor Piazzolla was done several times during the Piazzolla boom of the 1990s and 2000s and continues to turn up from time to time. It would seem a tall order for violinist Arabella Steinbacher and the Munich Chamber Orchestra to come up with something fresh, but in fact, it happens in at least three ways. First is that this is a modern-instrument performance, rare enough in Vivaldi these days to qualify as a novelty. Second, ...
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The combination of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos with the Cuatro estaciones porteñas of Astor Piazzolla was done several times during the Piazzolla boom of the 1990s and 2000s and continues to turn up from time to time. It would seem a tall order for violinist Arabella Steinbacher and the Munich Chamber Orchestra to come up with something fresh, but in fact, it happens in at least three ways. First is that this is a modern-instrument performance, rare enough in Vivaldi these days to qualify as a novelty. Second, in the Piazzolla, Steinbacher plays new arrangements by Peter von Wienhardt, more straightforward and more suited to her purposes than the more commonly used violin-and-orchestra versions by Leonid Desyatnikov. Third, she uses the Piazzolla seasons as introductions to the Vivaldi, probably the least common place for them but one that makes satisfying sense; they set the right moods. After all of these, the most important thing is that Steinbacher gives a truly impressive performance...
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