Search - Antonio Vivaldi, Jan Jansen :: Vivaldi: Four Seasons [Hybrid SACD]

Accessible and enjoyable Vivaldi

Kyle Genther | WA USA | 03/18/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Vivaldi is practically as synonymous with virtuosic violin arrangements as McDonalds is with fat. Practically. Janine Jansen's arrangements for Vivaldi's Four Seasons is stark, graceful, and engaging- she assigns only one musician per part. The sometimes overwhleming grandeur of fully orchestrated arrangements is appreciatively mellowed, allowing the ear to really hear each musician and their expected "virtuosic" and precise talent. Though mellowed to nearly Starbucks ambiance, the arrangements manage to retain the energy and excitement of Vivaldi in a fresh and accessible new form."

Vivaldi 4 Seasons: Emphasis on chamber subtlety, sparkle, wi

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 08/21/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like the appealing Cho-Liang Lin with Sejong - on Naxos in regular red book CD - this reading of the Vivaldi Four Season concerto cycle emphasizes the chamber concerto possibilities of the score. For listeners used to larger ensembles, the intimacy of sound and texture may take some getting used to, but, come to think of it, probably not all that much, nor all that difficult an adjustment to make.



As it happens, this amazing music survives the reduced ensemble as well as it survived the expanded ones that typically used to be the concert hall norm, as well as filling up the old recordings catalogues in the Baroque revival years. If anything, Jansen brings ever more subtlety to the musical color, sparkle, and wit on offer in each concerto than the hackneyed repertoire status of these works might lead any of us to expect from any new recording. Like Lin and Sejong, Jansen is one with her group, even more than Sejong if that is possible.



She commands, not with volume and thunderbolts and eclipsing everybody else on stage, but rather by truly playing as first among equals. Her fiddling is as fine as any other recorded version available, yet she goes beyond sheer technical mastery to leave us spell bound with wonder at her utter - and utterly fresh - identification with these thrice-familiar concertos.



I put off buying this disc, because I already have Lin with Sejong, plus a shelf full of very good other performances, few of which I seem to want to give away. I thought: What in the world would I be doing, if I gave in and got yet another reading.



Then curiosity and my love affair with superaudio surround sound got the better of me, and I played it out like Elizabeth I, slipping Jansen's Four Seasons in among a small stack, disguised like the forbidden death warrant that got Queen Mary's head chopped off. I really expected to get home, give it all a spin, and come to the conclusion that I've gotten old enough to be foolish. Then I could clear the air by picking some friend to get the Jansen reading as a nice gift on the right date.



Not. This one goes to the keeper shelf, right along with the period instrument Kuijken, the silvery Henryk Szeryng, yadda yadda, Il Giardino Armonico, Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi, and Lin with Sejong.



You probably already own your own favs from before. Yet this reading with Janine Jansen and her friends (including the likes of Julian Rachlin, among others, wow) has a sweet special magic and color and fizz all its own. Am I thinking champagne here? Served most elegantly, exquisitely chilled, and warm with the gathering of life's long, dear friends.



Get this one if you are not already sated, then. I predict you will be keeping it, too, instead of passing it on as a gift. And if you can hear the superaudio surround, well does it get any better? Final clue: I've already gotten four more as real gifts for friends at the office. If this is your own first Four Seasons concerto cycle, you will be off to such a fine start that you might have to bring your grade point up this term, just to acknowledge your own possibilities for appreciating the good things in life, suddenly revealed, within unexpected new reach."

Exciting, Quite Original, Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" From

John Kwok | New York, NY USA | 07/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Startling, exciting, and quite original, are the very words to describe Janine Jansen's unique, quite insightful, interpretation of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons". While there are many fine recordings of this work, with the best of the relatively recent crop include Mutter's and Chang's, Jansen's recording deserves ample praise simply for its bold, daring performance of Vivaldi's concerti cycle. Why? Hers is quite literally a stripped-down interpretation, consisting of herself, five other strings (two violins, viola, cello and double bass), theorbo and box organ/harpsichord. It is a tightly knit ensemble that includes American violinist Julian Rachlin, her brother Maarten (cello) and her father Jan (box organ/harpsichord). This allows for a "wonderfully transparent sound" that allowed "the musicians to be very flexible in colouring, dynamics and timing", as she notes in the CD liner notes. An ensemble that has yielded a very brisk, and very spirited, interpretation of these Vivaldi pieces. Needless to say, Decca's sound engineers have done a superlative job in this recording, which was made back in the Spring of 2004 in a Dutch concert hall. If there is only one false note that might be seized upon by detractors of Ms. Jansen's exceptional talents as a fine young classical musician, then it is the existence of appealing, quite alluring, photographs of her in rather revealing gowns on virtually every page of the CD liner notes; however, do not use these as a guide to determine whether or not you should acquire what is truly an exciting, rather invigorating, interpretation of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons".

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