The graphics don't make it clear, but what's here are recorder concertos, not those for the transverse flute. Swiss recorder player Maurice Steger and conductor Diego Fasolis, with his historical-instrument group I Barocchisti, have recorded Vivaldi before, but this collection of concertos goes into new territory. It might be preferable to the earlier release on Claves for the sound alone: Harmonia Mundi's engineers, working in an auditorium in Lugano, make room for the quicksilver, liquid sound of I Barocchisti here. As for the playing itself, Fasolis adopts the hypothesis, explained in the notes, that the more high-powered among these concertos were written not for Vivaldi's usual instrumentalists at the Ospedale della Pietà girls' home, but for a noted virtuoso. And he not only adopts that position, but pushes it to its extreme limit. Sample the Presto movement of the Concerto in G minor, RV 439 ("La notte"), track 6, for an idea of what this recording gets into. About all that can be said about Steger's performance is that he succeeds in hanging on for dear life. Even in the more moderate opening-tempo movements Fasolis offers extremely unusual articulation, completely avoiding the squarish blocks that are usual with Baroque music. The slow movements are generally played straight, which almost sounds odd when set against the sheer originality of the rest of it. There's not really any reason to suppose that the music really sounded this way, and this recording is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. One thing it is not, though, is dull.
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