Vivaldi - The Four Seasons [Dura/Edlinger -Capella Istropolitana]
Now here's a disc which i've never seen before, and i've never seen since, i saw it on Ebay from Austria i think, and i had to have it, and the thing is better than i thought, these things only come your way almost once in a lifetime, grab them while you can, i've got loads of discs with this work on it, you could feel that something gets over popularized, but i think it's a worthy work to listen to a broad range of interpretations, and this is this discs very first outing, a really nice acquisition.
Roxana Dura is from Romania, i've never heard of her before, this work was recorded in 1990, so it also seems that she has fallen off the face of the earth in the last 20 years, the booklet is very good [by Juraj Bartos], nice dark background, which emphasises the Artists, nicely caught in 'practice' clothes rather than in performing attire, though i don't know why the lettering is in small print for her name, another great disc in my library.
I must admit that this performance isn't revolutionary, pretty much like many other performances, though very good, i enjoyed Winter the best, especially the middle movement Largo, the violins like rain drops pizzicato in the background, on this performance it only lasts less than 2 minutes, it's those high strings that really make the piece, it's a lovely tune by Dura, right at the end the violin pizzicato goes down toward bass, plus slows down to a stop [1:35-1:44], a nice ending.
Here's Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the middle movement of Winter on YouTube, Herbert Von Karajan conducting.
Here's Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the middle movement of Winter on YouTube, Herbert Von Karajan conducting.
