Conductor and keyboardist Rinaldo Alessandrini did as much as anyone else to popularize the vigorous, operatically influenced way of performing Italian Baroque instrumental music, and this 2022 release shows that even after dozens of albums, he is still contributing fresh takes to the catalog, even in music as familiar as the 12 concertos of Vivaldi's L'estro armonico ("The Harmonic Inspiration"), Op. 3. In the early years of the Baroque revival, these concertos were almost as popular as the Four Seasons violin concertos, ...
Read More
Conductor and keyboardist Rinaldo Alessandrini did as much as anyone else to popularize the vigorous, operatically influenced way of performing Italian Baroque instrumental music, and this 2022 release shows that even after dozens of albums, he is still contributing fresh takes to the catalog, even in music as familiar as the 12 concertos of Vivaldi's L'estro armonico ("The Harmonic Inspiration"), Op. 3. In the early years of the Baroque revival, these concertos were almost as popular as the Four Seasons violin concertos, but this is apparently the first time anyone has thought to combine them with Bach's keyboard transcriptions of several of them for piano or organ. The combination is revelatory, showing how Bach heard in Vivaldi an intrepid explorer of musical space in the big concertos for multiple instruments (as many as four violins), strings, and continuo. Alessandrini actually tones down his high-powered orchestral approach a bit in these performances, perhaps to make room for the brilliant...
Read Less
