Neeme Jarvi conducts Christopher Palmers version, preserving the film music to Ivan the Terrible. This re-issue offers this praised recording at Classics price. Christopher Palmer strikes again! It is undoubtedly one of the great film scores, and Jarvi more than does it justice with the help of impassioned singing and playing from all concerned. CD Review
Who are these Gods, Emperors and Angels in the title of the latest virtuoso vehicle for Adrian Chandler and his dazzling period-instrument band La Serenissima? Vivaldi was connected to many Highnesses on the European continent, foremost among them the widely cultured Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV to whom Vivaldi dedicated his set of concertos titled La Cetra, meaning “The Lyre,” hence likening the emperor to the lyre-playing god Apollo. The theme continues with the oddly titled Concerto Conca or “Conch Concerto,” alluding to the use of the conch shell as a musical trumpet, heard in the work’s first movement, and as used by Triton, son of Neptune and Amphitrite, and by Neptune’s attendants. The Angels are undoubtedly Vivaldi’s virtuoso female students at the Ospedale della Pietà, one of which was described in a contemporary anonymous poem: “She plays the violin in such a way / that anyone hearing her is transported to Paradise / if indeed it is true that up there / the angels play like that.”