Great Vivaldi Concertos
ABC 4769233
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Paul Dyer, Artistic Director
various soloists including Elizabeth Wallfisch and Genevieve Lacey.

Great Vivaldi Concertos is a compilation of recordings made by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra over the past five or so years. It includes two concertos from their Four Seasons release, with Elizabeth Wallfisch playing violin, and two concertos from the Aria award-winning Il Flauto Dolce, starring (and there is no other word for it), Genevieve Lacey. The latter in particular was a critical success, receiving rave reviews from all Australia’s major dailies.

What those discs have, and what this one lacks, is a sense of coherence. Four Seasons is a straightforward exemplar of how to structure a CD with the bulk of the disc comprising a well‑known favourite, followed by two virtuosic concertos (the two re‑released here) as an encore. Il Flauto Dolce was more ambitious, an opera without words which weaves together a long series of works under the auspices of a loosely quasi‑operatic narrative. Like all such operas we can forgive the wanting plot and bask in the luminosity of the star soprano.

Great Vivaldi Concertos has two entr’actes, the concertos for strings in F major and C major, which are lively enough, but lack any solo part. They are by far the shortest tracks, and are, I hope, deliberately bland. My difficulty with the rest of the disc is this: opera needs drama, and there simply isn’t enough dramatic content to the other six concertos.

There are no shortage of interpreters of this repertoire. The best of them are able to make this music sparkle, and impel the listener to dance, or smile (or cry), or reach for an instrument to play. The difficulty with Vivaldi is that it is all too easy to render it as little more than an impressive technical exercise. Look at the speed of my barriolage bowing, listen to the clarity of my super‑fast tonguing! For Wallfisch and Lacey, such technical feats are effortless.

When the Brandenburg Orchestra are at full volume, they play with gusto and passion. The opening of the CD is such an example, the same track which on the earlier release was entitled ‘All are united in joyous celebration’. Throughout the first movement the orchestra provides a simple framework for the recorder’s virtuosic music.

The second movement is much harder, for the soloist and orchestra must co‑exist, and, ideally, respond to each other. Either the tutti players are not flexible enough, or Lacey is not sufficiently persuasive, for the result is that the music sounds constrained. The final movement, and, indeed, most of the other pieces, exhibit this same tendency.

Partly this may be a problem attributed to the orchestra’s harpsichordist and artistic director, Paul Dyer. Frustratingly, he avoids any creativity in his part, preferring plain chords and simple melodies. This is a particular deficit in the slow movements where few strings play, and his instrument is more exposed. Throughout the disc the harpsichord lacks resonance, which renders any articulations he performs inaudible.

A lack of attention to articulation is a malady which infects the all the players here. Even Lacy and Wallfisch, whose competency of execution is not in question, fail to utilize a full range of possibilities. The result is that each phrase sounds like the one before.

The Academy of Ancient Music, and Il Giardino Armonico (to give my favourite two ensembles at the top of the Vivaldi‑performance tree) are a world apart in term of creativity in approach; their ability to make this music come to life never ceases to surprise me. Where they revel in endless subtleties of expression (I must mention the joy that comes from listening to Egarr’s extraordinary continuo playing), the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra seems focused on generating a facture of vigorous notes.

Jamie Hey’s cello playing is the highlight of the disc. He performs his own transcription of the Concerto in (RV516) for cello and violin with flair, and a sense for the dramatic. His ornamentation, whilst not always sitting perfectly, is engaging; far more so than that of Lacey and Wallfisch, both of whom are too ready to resort to long, unadorned notes played with a uniform (and completely vibrato‑less) timbre.

This CD needs either more purpose (like the Orchestra’s previous discs), or a higher standard of ensemble performance, to make it successful as a collection of Vivaldi’s concertos.

© Michael Hooper