VIVALDI

Le Quattro Stagioni (arr Red Priest)

CORELLI

Christmas Concerto (arr Red Priest)

Dorian DOR-90317

This manic quartet has arranged - re-composed rather - Vivaldi's Seasons for its outwardly conventional ensemble of recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord.   But the noises they make are anything but conventional.   A positive aviary of birds precedes 'Spring', harpsichord throwing sidelong glances at the opening melody.   A dog (labrador?) barks ad lib. (not ad Vivaldi) before bagpipe bellows inflate offensively, and a 'Pastoral Dance' extends the very limits of virtuosity in both tempo and ornamentation.  

The heat of 'Summer' brings an unexpected return of Spring's dog, a tiny garklein-recorder goldfinch and a huge catalogue of sound effects. A Rimsky-Korsakovian bumble-bee flies through the eye of the summer storm.   For some inexplicable reason, drunken peasants sing the National Anthem in their autumnal revelling.   'Winter' brings the bitterest frost on record before a dream of warmer climes, Caribbean rhythms caressing a violin so laid-back that it's virtually horizontal.

I don't buy Piers Adams' 'radical new view to re-appreciate the soul of [the] work', but for sheer imagination it's unbeatable and, given Red Priest's declared intention, I can't fault either performance or recorded sound - all it lacks is a health warning.   The Corelli, though, is indefensible, its first Allegro an absurd scramble, the Pastorale interrupted by another gratuitous folk bagpiper taking a refil, and some wild tempo variations.

George Pratt