The market might not seem to be crying out for a new recording of
Vivaldi's
Four Seasons violin concertos, but there is method in violinist
Renaud Capucon's madness. For one thing, his is something of an old-school approach. True, he leads the
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne from the violin, but otherwise, this may remind the listener of the days a half-century ago when major symphony orchestras would program the
Four Seasons in full orchestral garb.
Capucon and his players use modern instruments, and the orchestra is good-sized, large enough for
Capucon to whip up some highly percussive effects in the stormier passages of these programmatic concertos. As for
Capucon, he offers a full display of the charismatic playing that has so endeared him to the French public. He takes brisk tempos but leaves himself room to shape expressive lines with tempo variations that are perhaps idiomatic to
Vivaldi but that work on their own terms. Novel, too, is the inclusion of two concertos by
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Black Guadeloupean composer whose music is increasingly often being rediscovered. His violin concertos are probably his strongest works, expansive and varied. The annotator's claim that the recordings offer the chance to "compare" the two composers doesn't make a lot of sense; the music here comes from times half a century apart and from two different worlds, but the
Bologne concertos can stand up to performances by a top-flight violinist, and it is good to have these recordings. There is much of interest on this release. ~ James Manheim
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