To begin on a non-musical
topic: could record companies issuing
CDs of music by Vivaldi please consider
a temporary moratorium on the use of
paintings by Canaletto as cover pictures?
As it happens, I admire Canaletto’s
work enormously, but to use it as appropriate
‘decoration’ for music by Vivaldi (as
here) has become a very hackneyed practice.
How about some paintings by, say, Guardi
or Ricci, Turner, Whistler or Monet?
But to get to the music
itself. For all that this CD is, sensibly
enough, called ‘Recorder Concertos’,
it is important to stress that the recorder
isn’t the only solo instrument to be
heard here, though it is the most prominent
and frequent.
These seven concertos
for chamber ensemble are actually quite
various and subtle in their instrumental
colourings, as different permutations
are employed by Vivaldi between – and
within – individual concertos. So, for
example, in RV 105 the first movement
makes use of recorder, oboe, violin
and bassoon with continuo provided by
cello and harpsichord; the second movement
is an aria for recorder, accompanied
only by the bassoon; the third movement
is for all six instruments, with the
bassoon now given renewed solo duties.
All seven concertos
are in the usual Vivaldian form of three
movements, fast-slow-fast and none are
without moments of characteristic invention.
Particular pleasures include the sensuous
duet for recorder and oboe in the largo
of RV 103, accompanied by bassoon and
harpsichord; the impudently imitative
writing for recorder and violin in the
final allegro of RV 92; the charmingly
odd largo for recorder and bassoon in
RV 105, mentioned above; the largo of
RV 94, where recorder and bassoon are
joined by the violin; and the splendidly
vigorous, yet delicate, closing allegro
of RV 87, in which oboe and recorder
are prominent, to the accompaniment
of some witty writing for the violins.
Throughout these (mostly)
Hungarian players display a strong sense
of appropriate style and their playing
has the necessary rhythmic vitality.
László Kecskeméti
negotiates the quicker movements with
confident agility and in the slower
movements he has an impressive sense
of melodic line. László
Hadady – who I remember hearing as soloist
in a recording of Berio’s Sequenza
VII – brings to the music a certainty
of intonation, an attractive tone and
a finely developed sense of musical
dialogue. Indeed, the ensemble playing
is at all times admirable – not least
in the contributions made by the bassoon
of György Olajos.
Surely only those whose
approach to Vivaldi is still conditioned
by the kind of prejudice expressed in
Stravinsky’s remark, to Robert Craft,
that he "was a dull fellow"
because he "could compose the same
form over and so many times over",
would fail to find much to enjoy on
this CD. It is the very ‘sameness’ (in
the most general terms) of the form
that serves as the canvas on which Vivaldi’s
remarkable fertility of invention is
displayed.
These are not, I suppose,
particularly ‘starry’ performances and
they may not have quite the panache
of some of the performances of Vivaldi
that we have heard from Italian ensembles
in recent years. But they are richly
enjoyable, affectionate and affection-stirring
performances and well worth the having
and the hearing – especially, but not
only, because they are available at
Naxos price.
Glyn Pursglove
László Kecskeméti (recorder),
László Hadady (oboe)1,
Attila Falvay2 and Katalin Párkányi3
(violins), György Olajos4 (bassoon),
György Kertész5 (cello),
Borbála Dobozy6 (harpsichord)
