Vivaldi - Guitar Concerto [Isbin/Foster-Orchestre De Chambre De Lausanne]
And finally, here's the last work on this disc i played, which i was surprisingly taken aback with, Vivaldi has written so many Concertos [roughly 500], that it's easy to get lost in the quantity, and lose the real quality of some of these pieces, he's been accused of writing the same Concerto five hundred times.
Written originally for the Lute, but i find that instrument lifeless and bland, the guitar works so much better, and Sharon Isbin's interpretation is just great.
This is the first time i've actually heard this work, and the slow movement is truly a gem, a great discovery for me, and it's a perfect companion piece to the Rodrigo works, the guitar gently picks as the strings play a soft melody [0:00-1:21], it stays slow and sweet, meanders here and there, gets more complex and less complex, goes into a short minor key episode [2:44-3:18], the ending is gentle and relaxing [4:20-5:59], very soothing, reminds me of the rain falling.
Here's Boris Bagger playing the slow movement on YouTube.
