Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
If you think you've been overexposed to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, the arrangements by 18th-century musician Nicolas Chédeville featured on this disc will give you a fresh outlook. Although your first impression might be of a very distant cousin to P.D.Q. Bach, Chédeville's versions featuring hurdy-gurdy and musette (a kind of bagpipe) actually corresponded to a contemporary French fashion. Dressed as peasants, aristocrats would accompany their slumming with rustic-sounding instruments ("real peasants," as the booklet notes dryly observe, "had their revenge a generation later"). These reworkings of Vivaldi's concerti grossi are more than mere transcriptions (a common-enough practice in the Baroque). As a kind of proto-mix master, Chédeville rearranges and actually substitutes different concertos from Vivaldi's original Op. 12 set for the familiar "Summer" and "Winter." The Palladian Ensemble, a period-instrument chamber ensemble, brings an effervescent zip to the proceedings that is truly infectious. Listen to how Vivaldi's imitative treatments of bird calls in "Spring" take on a new guise as rendered by chirping recorder against the wheezy backdrop of a hurdy-gurdy. The collaborations here radiate the sheer fun of spontaneous involvement: the "ad libitum" improvisations in Chédeville's own "Sonata in A" (which he attempted to pass off as a creation of Vivaldi's) sound like the 18th-century equivalent of a crackling jam session. Elsewhere, the plangent mingling of pipes and recorder creates a truly striking timbre, proving just how malleable is the flow of Vivaldi's melodies. The Palladian's style and panache will tease your ears with a delightful sense of invention throughout. --Thomas May
Les Saisons Amusantes - Vivaldi's The Four Seasons Adapted By Nicolas Chedeville / Palladian Ensemble, Music, Palladian Ensemble, Antonio Vivaldi, Nicolas Chedeville, Pamela Thorby, Rachel Podger, Susanne Heinrich, William Carter, Classical, Classical Artists, Classical Music, Orchestral & Symphonic
Track Listings:
Track Listings
A New Form of Beauty [CD-single] [Original recording remastered]
Classics In The Movies, Volume 2
Light My Fire: Greatest Hits [Import]
Freestyle Greatest Beats: Complete Collection, Vol. 5
Della Della Cha-Cha-Cha [Import]
Concerto for Fortepiano in B Flat Major
Contra Music -The Sound of New England
Complete Studio Recordings [Box set] [Original recording remastered] [Import]