No, not more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! How can there be any more? Have not decades of scholarships overturned every possible rock to find every possible violin concerto by the composer of The Four Seasons, everybody's perennial favorite? Although the answer is apparently not, that is, in fact, good news: that there are still more lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos by Vivaldi should warm the hearts and open the wallets of classical music lovers around the world.
And that is not all the good news. The really good news is that seven more-or-less new Violin Concertos by Vivaldi have been recorded by super-virtuoso Andrew Manze leading the super-fine English Concert. And while none of them, not even the super-sultry L'amoroso, will make most listeners shed their allegiance to Vivaldi's four greatest hits, all of them are in truth just as lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and perhaps even more mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos that Manze dispatches with his by now customary panache and aplomb. Yes, more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! Harmonia Mundi's digital sound is vivid and immediate.