Part of a Sony reissue series reproducing and combining notable releases from the Columbia Masterworks LP catalog, with original artwork and packaging, this album takes the listener back to a time when Antonio Vivaldi's music, even the ubiquitous Four Seasons violin concertos, was quite new even for the general run of classical music buyers. The notes spend a lot of time laboriously explaining, without much success, how Vivaldi's conception of program music differed from that of, say, Richard Strauss. Plainly Vivaldi did ...
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Part of a Sony reissue series reproducing and combining notable releases from the Columbia Masterworks LP catalog, with original artwork and packaging, this album takes the listener back to a time when Antonio Vivaldi's music, even the ubiquitous Four Seasons violin concertos, was quite new even for the general run of classical music buyers. The notes spend a lot of time laboriously explaining, without much success, how Vivaldi's conception of program music differed from that of, say, Richard Strauss. Plainly Vivaldi did not have the string section of the Philadelphia Orchestra in mind when he wrote the music heard here, and there have been several generations of increased understanding of what his music is about since these recordings were made in 1959 and 1960. Nevertheless, the primary impression conveyed here is how clearly true musicianship will show itself. Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy had a feel for Vivaldi, perhaps partly because his predecessor, Leopold Stokowski, had...
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