MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Vivaldi: Concerti per fagotto (bassoon), oboe and strings Vol 3

Thanks to the enterprise of the Vivaldi Edition, we are beginning to get a clearer idea of the incredible output of this most prolific of composers: operas, sacred music, cantatas, motets, chamber music, a whole range of genres to which his contribution was until quite recently totally unknown.

But after all, there is one field we think we are already well acquainted with. Oh yes, Vivaldi is the man who wrote all those violin concertos: The Four Seasons, L'estro armonico, and so on. And there are a few concertos for flute as well, aren't there? But how many people know that Vivaldi was the first (and only) great composer to write a whole series of concertos for bassoon? No fewer than thirty nine masterpieces, in fact, which have survived only in his personal collection, now in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin: fascinating virtuoso works that use all the resources of this instrument with its contrasting registers, now tender, now drolly comic.

Here is a mouthwatering glimpse of this repertoire, including a version for fagot of the renowned Concerto "La Notte", with the added bonus of two fine oboe concertos, in impeccably stylish performances by one of the most consistently award winning Baroque ensembles on the current scene, now making its first appearance in the Vivaldi Edition: I Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca.