Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni & La Follia

Julien Chauvin thought long and hard before recording The Four Seasons. The French violinist, founder of Le Concert de la Loge, knew it had been done hundreds of times before. But he reasoned there was room for another version, this time performed by one player per part. Chauvin and six of his Concert de la Loge companions, armed with tremendous empathy for each season, prove there are still fresh things to say about Vivaldi’s evergreen score. For the recording, Chauvin received special permission from the Château de Versailles to borrow one of its treasures, a violin by the Neapolitan Nicolò Gagliano, said to have belonged to Princess Adélaïde, daughter of Louis XV. “I was the last person who played on it, and that was in 2012,” he recalls. “I had the instrument just two days before the recording and wasn’t sure if I would be ready. What you hear comes out of that wonderful, wonderful violin and spontaneously out of me.” Here, Chauvin takes us through each season in this thrilling album. Autumn Chauvin and his group begin, not with Spring as is customary on most recordings, but with Autumn, the season that he believes is least-known among listeners. “We wanted to refresh the listener but also to say, ‘OK, listen now, listen to this!’” he tells Apple Music Classical. “I think there’s more of a chance people will explore the album as a whole.” And with Autumn comes the harvest. Vivaldi introduces the season with songs and dancing—workers in the fields celebrating the bounteous crop, accompanied by a flagon or two of their favourite tipple. Violinist Julien Chauvin and his ensemble bring a joyful chaos to the opening movement, as the dances get ever wilder, the drink ever more plentiful. The second movement “Adagio”, Chauvin suggests, has a cinematic feel. “It’s the night and they are all drunk—Vivaldi’s music paints images, like in a movie. It’s very, very modern—it shows non-movement, as well as the waiting around, and the darkness.” Vivaldi whisks us off to the hunt in the final “Allegro”, its repeated, hammering rhythms mirroring the gallop of the horses. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear the snap of the guns, the roar of the deer and its final breaths. “I can really feel the forest and the open air in the music,” says Chauvin, “but this is not a movement for vegans!” Winter Winter arrives—chattering teeth involuntarily set in motion by a bone-aching wind, compete for attention with the sound of stamping feet in the opening movement. The concerto surges to life, launched by spooky chords and an initial solo entry that launches straight out of the starting blocks. They’re no less committed (or theatrical) when the scene cuts to a warming fireside in the central “Largo” or takes to the ice for a finale filled with incomparable snowy joys. Above all, this Winter counters monochrome meteorological realities with vivid colours, high-wire virtuosity and daring musical gestures. Spring With Spring comes a feeling of freshness. “That freshness comes from your heart, of course,” says Chauvin, “but also from the sound and the texture. That’s why I chose to record with the simplest outfit. It’s one per part, because it’s much lighter and I prefer to sculpt the sound with fewer people.” The second movement features the barking of a dog (played on the viola) against the backdrop of a soaring violin solo. Vivaldi marks every bark as forte (loud), but Chauvin found an innovative way to vary each one. “We decided that the dog did not always have to be in the same place. And so our player was moving around the hall during the recording to achieve a different sound. Sometimes it’s very direct, sometimes indirect.” The pastoral dance that ends “Spring” is gracefully played—a tale told with unadorned simplicity. Summer In fact, none of Vivaldi’s effects are interpreted with extreme gestures. But there’s no want of drama in their performance of Summer. They set the scene with a suitably drowsy introduction before the first violins’ cuckoo call brings life to the opening “Allegro”. The concerto, notes Julien Chauvin, requires the whole band to evoke the sounds of the natural world. “This is a challenge today. Why? Because we’re so far from nature now in what we hear. We hear city noises, not those of nature.” Le Concert de la Loge travelled to Venice before recording Summer and found refuge on one of its islands. “The magic of Venice is that there are no cars, so you can hear the sounds of nature—the sea on the rocks, the wind in the trees, everything is there. It’s an inspiration, of course. But you have to make it yours. That’s a challenge. I’m not a farmer, so I don’t know what it is to lose my crop to a storm, like the farmer in the last movement of Summer. So I had to make this feeling for myself. It’s like acting.”