Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – Janine Jansen (2004) [Blu-ray]

Janine Jansen follows her first Decca album of violin favorites with this high-energy account of Vivaldi's four violin concertos, known and loved as 'The Four Seasons'. The Dutch violinist leads her specially selected group of soloists in a fresh look at the most loved of all classical works. What gives this recording its tremendous freshness and sparkle is Janine's use of just one player per part. Gone is the heavy orchestral sound which is so familiar, this is a four seasons which sparkles with new life and energy, like a freshly cleaned old painting revealed in its true colors.

"Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons" is usually performed with a full-size string orchestra, but for this recording we stripped the forces down to just five solo strings plus harpsichord, organ and theorbo (a sort of lute). This approach all started with an experiment. I began playing the Bach concertos with reduced orchestra, to see what it would sound like - and I found it worked extremely well.

Треклист:
Concerto No. 1 in E Major for solo violin "La Primavera
1. 1. Allegro 3:22
2. 2. Largo 2:25
3. 3. Allegro 3:58

Concerto No. 2 in G minor for solo violin, "L'Estate"
4. 1. Allegro non molto 5:22
5. 2. Adagio - Presto 2:12
6. 3. Presto 2:42

Concerto No. 3 in F Major for solo violin, "L'Autunno"
7. 1. Allegro 5:07
8. 2. Adagio molto 2:45
9. 3. Allegro 3:13

Concerto No. 4 in F minor for solo violin, "L'Inverno"
10. 1. Allegro non molto 3:08
11. 2. Largo 1:33
12. 3. Allegro 3:17