Paolo Carlini - Vivaldi: Concerti per fagotto, archi & continuo (2013)

Vivaldi wrote nearly 40 bassoon concertos, yet they remain among the least exposed sectors of his output. This neglect must be due to the comparative lack of popularity of the bassoon itself, for the Vivaldi bassoon concerts are an extraordinary group. On this Italian release, bassoonist Paolo Carlini and the Accademia I Filarmonici di Verona offer an excellent sampling of seven concertos, all of them combining blazing virtuosity (if a bassoon has ever "blazed," it does so here) with innovative formal thinking. All of the outer movements contain beautifully idiomatic writing that pushes the bassoon to its limits, which is all the more amazing in view of the fact that Vivaldi had few compositional models for treating the instrument as a concerto soloist; sample the first and last movements of the Concerto for bassoon and orchestra in A minor, RV 497, tracks 7 and 9, to get a taste of music that can stand up to Vivaldi's much better known violin concertos. You will hear a big, hornlike bassoon tone from Carlini. A Baroque bassoon, which has a considerably more curious sound, brings out interesting textures in these works, but Carlini's work is technically unimpeachable, and in music this difficult that's saying a lot. The "La notte" (The Night) concerto, RV 501, is one of Vivaldi's programmatic works, concluding with a glorious sunrise in the final movement, track 14. If you love the Four Seasons concertos and want to try something more unusual by Vivaldi, this could be a fine place to start, and the disc as a whole is strongly recommended to wind players and general Vivaldi enthusiasts. ~ James Manheim