Monday, November 26, 2012

Nigel Kennedy
"Vivaldi: The Four Seasons" (CD)

Released in 1989, this is a multi-platinum selling recording of classical music's one of famous works.  For a classical album, the word platinum is quite a mountain to have climbed.

Kennedy's approach to these concertos is not very consistent with period performance; rather, he treats these works like a virtuosic springboard to dazzle and amaze.  He uses his own cadenzas which are mostly atmospheric and wander in and out of harmonic relevance.
It is their intention to dazzle, but in a generation of such renewed interest in period performance, to hear something so blatantly contrary is eye-brow raising.

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