Latest Release
- 19 APR 2024
- 12 Songs
- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (Las Cuatro Estaciones De Vivaldi) · 2020
- Vivaldi: The Four Seasons · 2022
- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (Las Cuatro Estaciones De Vivaldi) · 2020
- Vivaldi, Entre Ombre Et Lumière · 2021
- Vivaldi in Our Heads · 2022
- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (Las Cuatro Estaciones De Vivaldi) · 2020
- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (Las Cuatro Estaciones De Vivaldi) · 2020
- Vivaldi: Concertos for Strings · 2023
- Vivaldi Variation (lofi version) - Single · 2023
- Cavendish Classical presents Cavendish Guitars: Classical Guitar Themes, Vol. 2 · 2024
Essential Albums
- Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a collection of four virtuosic violin concertos completed in 1720 at the height of the Baroque era, has mesmerised musicians and audiences in equal measure ever since. Recordings of it run into the hundreds, yet this one, released back in 2005 and remastered in Spatial Audio, stands out for its vibrancy and sense of fresh discovery. That’s because, Janine Jansen tells Apple Music Classical, this is a Four Seasons with a difference. “We did it with just eight people rather than a full orchestra,” she says. “And it was very exciting to experiment with this small group.” Among that tightly knit band of eight players were two members of Jansen’s own family—her cellist brother Maarten and father Jan on harpsichord and organ. Including them in the recording was, for Jansen, a natural extension of many happy hours spent making music together in the family home. “When I was growing up I played so many of the Baroque concertos with my father,” she remembers. “I learned so much from him. He would put together a small group of players for me to get a chance to perform these concertos, and we noticed with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons that it worked really well. It gave something special to the sound and to the freedom.” Using a similar small-ensemble approach for this recording brought many musical advantages. “We were playing this very well-known piece, but somehow having a different sense of colour, timing and transparency. The benefits were really good, and I didn’t miss having a bigger strength in the strings.” Jansen led the Four Seasons sessions on first violin, giving a dazzling account of Vivaldi’s solo writing. And although she had a clear idea of how she wanted the music to be interpreted, Jansen recalls how democratic it all felt. “We listened to each other’s ideas verbally, but also through playing and communicating, and reacting to one another. We definitely looked for new ideas and new approaches.” There’s a spirit of adventure to this recording—a sense of each musician knowing they’re making something very familiar sound wonderfully new. Jansen has a simple explanation: “What I remember most about the project,” she says, “is that it was a lot of fun with a great group of people.”
Artist Playlists
- The master behind The Four Seasons and scores of sprightly concertos.
- Venture off the beaten path and seek out the lesser-known music of a great composer.
- The Italian was not the only composer inspired by the year’s natural rhythms.
Appears On
About Antonio Vivaldi
A man for all seasons, Vivaldi was a violinist, composer, priest and shrewd businessman. Born in 1678 and based in Venice, he composed in every major form and was celebrated by his contemporaries as a virtuoso performer with a talent for spellbinding improvisation. His concerto style is more about solo display than team play, with unpredictable, sometimes wildly inventive solos held in check by regular orchestral passages (ritornellos) that map out the melodic and harmonic landscape. Using this ritornello form, Vivaldi laid the foundations of the solo concerto in collections like L’estro armonico Op. 3 (1711), which influenced a generation—including Bach. Vivaldi also had a taste for colourful orchestration and a love of the natural world, conjuring up cuckoos, storms and, most famously, the Four Seasons (Op. 8, 1725). Vivaldi’s ambitious church music—like the large-scale Gloria RV 589 for soloists, choir, and orchestra—was mostly written for services and sacred concerts given by the gifted young musicians of the Pietà, the famous orphanage for girls in Venice where Vivaldi taught. Interest in Vivaldi’s concertos and church music has long overshadowed his theatrical work, where recent research suggests he was one of the most prolific opera composers and impresarios of the late Baroque: Between 1713 and his death in 1741, he was involved in around 70 productions, including the magic-themed Orlando furioso RV 728 (1727), featuring one of opera’s first great mad scenes.
- HOMETOWN
- Venice, Italy
- BORN
- 4 de marzo de 1678
- GENRE
- Classical