The Whole Music Experience

Jean-Guihen Queyras Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin Vivaldi Cello Concertos Harmonia Mundi I’ve never been a huge fan of the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s repertoire.   I heard it grace several music soundtracks growing up, heard The Four Seasons at weddings, on street corners, farmer’s markets and cafes, mostly in passing.   I only own one other Vivaldi recording, featuring a Norwegian girl’s choir singing sacred works on Kirkelig Kulturverksted.   But Vivaldi’s cello concertos have the power to win me over and to transform the cello’s melancholic reputation.   Many of us are familiar with the expressive cello as portrayed in Bach’s (a baroque contemporary of Vivaldi) cello suites, but during the baroque era, the cello’s role was to contribute a continuous bass along with bassoon and other low-end instruments.   This means that innovative Vivaldi went against the musical protocol of his time, when he transformed the cello into a lead pl...