Recorded live at the Carinthian Summer Festival on 27 August 1979, this concert features soloists from the orchestra of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala under the direction of Claudio Abbado. One of the leading conductors of our time, Abbado was music director and artistic director of the Scala until 1986 before shifting his focus to Vienna (music director of the Vienna State Opera from 1986-1991) and, later, Berlin. Since 1969, the Carinthian Summer in Ossiach, Austria, has been presenting internationally acclaimed soloists and ensembles in splendid Alpine settings. A particularly opulent venue is the Baroque monastery church of Ossiach, where this concert was filmed.
RCO: The Four Seasons – Vivaldi & Piazzolla
The concert gives people from different cultural backgrounds the chance to soak up the atmosphere of the classical concert hall. The programme features an exciting mix of Italian Baroque with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Argentine passion in the master of tango Astor Piazzolla’s own Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Both the orchestra’s principal violinists, Vesko Eschkenazy and Liviu Prunaru, have been given the wonderful job of conveying, together with their fellow musicians, the shimmering quality of both idioms. (Cat. No. UNITEL: A865500200000).
Hope for Prague
A special concert in a stunning setting: British violinist Daniel Hope, who studied under the legendary Yehudi Menuhin, performs Max Richter’s iconic composition “Vivaldi Recomposed”, a re-imagining of the Four Seasons, with the Epoque Orchestra on a floating stage on the Vltava against the backdrop of Prague Castle and overlooked by the imposing National Theatre complex. The concert also features the world premiere of a new version of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana’s “Vltava”, which is named after the river.
Luka Sulic: The Four Seasons – Vivaldi & more
After seven years of touring the world as part of the critically acclaimed duo 2CELLOS, Luka Šulic returns to his classical roots. „I‘ve loved Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons since I was a child,“ says Luka Šulic of his newest project, adding, „I‘ve always wanted to play the piece on the cello and love taking on new challenges.“ Even in a Baroque masterpiece, Luka Šulic is ready to defy expectations and shatter boundaries. Though hundreds of traditional recordings exist of The Four Seasons with a violin soloist, Luka Šulic‘s recording is the first complete version – his own painstaking work – that reimagines all four concertos of The Four Seasons for a cello soloist. Joining Luka Šulic for the recording is the Orchestra of Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste.
The Four Seasons
“The greatest musical prodigy since the young Menuhin”: that’s how Herbert von Karajan described the talented violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, barely 14 years old when he met her. Together they recorded the violin concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms with the Berliner Philharmoniker. In this concert broadcast live in 1987 as part of the opening celebrations for Berlin Philharmonie’s Kammermusiksaal, the virtuoso violinist performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.