There are several attractions to this release by violinist Adrian Chandler and his English historical-instrument group La Serenissima. One is the presence of a pair of world premieres, which despite the size of Vivaldi's output are not as common as they used to be. These are a pair of concertos for the violin in tromba marina, an instrument so rare that one had to be reconstructed for this recording. It's a three-stringed violin, apparently an elaboration of a monochord that was intended to evoke the sound of a marine ...
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There are several attractions to this release by violinist Adrian Chandler and his English historical-instrument group La Serenissima. One is the presence of a pair of world premieres, which despite the size of Vivaldi's output are not as common as they used to be. These are a pair of concertos for the violin in tromba marina, an instrument so rare that one had to be reconstructed for this recording. It's a three-stringed violin, apparently an elaboration of a monochord that was intended to evoke the sound of a marine trumpet (hence the name). Vivaldi is the only composer known to have written for it, and as usual he was brilliant in making use of its capabilities, writing open chords of a kind that did not appear in any of his other compositions. You also get unusually sensitive performances of a pair of bassoon concertos by Baroque bassoonist Peter Whelan. But none of this would have mattered had the main enterprise, a recording of the much-played Four Seasons, not succeeded. The graphics blurb...
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