Vivaldi: Concerti per violino X 'Intorno a Pisendel'

Naïve’s groundbreaking Vivaldi Edition is one of the glories of classical recording, worthy to rank alongside Antal Doráti’s integral Haydn symphonies and the Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Gustav Leonhardt Bach cantata series. The latest volume features six violin concertos either dedicated to or at the very least copied out by Vivaldi’s star German violinist pupil Johann Georg Pisendel, played in spectacular style by Julien Chauvin, director of crack period instrument band Le Concert de la Loge. Gone are the days of cloying vibrato and glowing cantabile succulence. This is Vivaldi in the raw, bounding athletically from one exciting virtuoso figuration to another with genre-defining ingenuity. You never know quite what’s around the corner, whether it be a dazzling solo cadenza in the finale of the Violin Concerto in A Major, RV 340, soloists suddenly emerging from the orchestra in the Violin Concerto in B-Flat Major, RV 369 or the guitarlike pizzicatos in the Violin Concerto in D Major, RV 226. Everything is played with intoxicating flair and imagination.