Vivaldi: Concerti Per Fagotto V

It’s hard to imagine a more passionate advocate for these works than Sergio Azzolini, who brings fiendish agility to the fast movements and makes his instrument sigh and sing in the pathos-laden,... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2021, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 16th Apr 2021
Catalogue No: OP30573
Label: Naive

Presto Editor's Choice

April 2021
International Classical Music Awards

2022

Nominated - Baroque Instrumental

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Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 497 in A minor

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 476 in C major

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 486 in F major

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 481 in D minor

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 467 in C major

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 489 in F major

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto, RV 479 in C major

Sergio Azzolini (bassoon)
l'Onda Armonica

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The Italian bassoonist and his ensemble here give a renewed testimony of their unswerving commitment to this repertoire, with its virtuoso demands not just on the soloist, for whom the avant-garde Vivaldi exploits the whole range of pyrotechnical effects and expressive potential, but also on the orchestra, rounded out with woodwinds, theorbo, lute, guitar, harp, organ and harpsichord.

“I made this choice,” explains Sergio Azzolini, “after an intensive study of the Vivaldi scores preserved in the Dresden library, containing a whole series of compositions originally conceived just for a string ensemble - but highly coloured by the addition of a large number of wind instruments.”

This expanded ensemble gives the concertos a highly dramatic character, underlined by the bassoon in lyrical and elegiac passages just as much as in its moments of joyful brilliance. Sergio Azzolini has borrowed cadenzas from Vivaldi’s violin concertos (in RV 479, RV 486), yet while the bassoon’s extrovert energy sometimes bubbles over, bordering on frenzy (RV 489, RV 497), there are also meditative monologues (RV 479, for example), in this programme of surprising contrasts.

CD with 36-page booklet.

Reviews

June 2021

It’s hard to imagine a more passionate advocate for these works than Sergio Azzolini, who brings fiendish agility to the fast movements and makes his instrument sigh and sing in the pathos-laden, operatic slow movements. He draws pert ensemble playing, too, from L’Onda Armonica who capture both the visceral and the delicate sides of Vivaldi’s musical personae.

May 2021

I’m not sure that bassoon concertos will ever hold quite the same mass appeal as violin ones but Vivaldi’s do a great sales job for the instrument, and Azzolini has done a great sales job on Vivaldi.

April 2021

Azzolini displays serious agility in the gleefully flamboyant Allegros of RV489 and 497, and conjures an astonishing range of sonorities from his instrument throughout – there are moments in the second concerto where he emulates a pizzicato cello to great effect, and elsewhere there’s a natural horn-like quality to his sound in the lower-middle register. Imaginative use of continuo, too: in 467 you’d swear a thundersheet had been added into the mix!

6th June 2021

Azzolini plays seven concertos, relishing the perky humour of the fast movements while lavishing a singing legato on central andantes and largos. The variety of invention astonishes, no more so than in his transcriptions’ violin cadenzas.

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