Now, let’s take a look at Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”. During the “Baroque boom” half a century ago, the best-selling LP record in the Japanese classical music market was Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” by I Musici, released by Philips. This record has probably not been broken even today. I also had an LP record of “The Four Seasons” by I Musici, led by Félix Ayo. So whose record was the first performance of this piece with original instruments? I can’t say for sure, but I think it was either Alice Harnoncourt or Christopher Hogwood. Anyway, all kinds of performers have recorded this piece in the past. Even Herbert von Karajan had the Berlin Philharmonic perform it. Since the beginning of this century, original instrumentalists have experimented with a variety of instrumentation. In addition to the use of theorbo and guitar for basso continuo, solo instruments have also become more varied. And now we have reached the end of the road with the recordings of François Lazarevitch and the musicians of St. Julien. He uses Nicolas Chédeville’s arranged score for “Spring” only (by musette). In “Summer”, “Autumn” and “Winter”, he makes full use of the vertical and horizontal flutes of different sizes and plays the solo part exactly the same as the violin in its original key. I would say his performance is the final form of this work, the “point of arrival”. #baroque #vivaldi #片山俊幸 https://excelkobo.net/music/Chedeville-1_Le_Printems.pdf
