Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
The conclusion of this year’s Early Music Festival will be a performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concerto cycle The Four Seasons, one of the most famous opuses of classical music, played and interpreted all over the world countless times. The four violin concertos combined in the cycle were first released in 1725 under the title ‘Contest between Harmony and Invention’. This music truly lacks neither in harmony nor invention, as Vivaldi had a great deal of fun drawing inspiration from nature and society alike and even wrote accompanying sonnets in the partiture. The temper and vivaciousness embedded in the composition unleashes the fantasy of anyone who interprets it, yet it requires brilliant technique and lively musicality. This time, young Italian violin star Giuseppe Gibboni, laureate of the prestigious International Premio Paganini, will prove his skill in collaboration with Sinfonietta Rīga.
At the beginning of the concert, conductor Andris Veismanis, experienced in early and baroque music, will join the accomplished chamber orchestra to reveal gems of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music. Alongside suites by French baroque genius André Campra from his opulent opéra-ballets Les fêtes vénitiennes and Le carnaval de Venise, we will hear music from German operatic reformer Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Armide, composed for a Parisian audience.
Programme
Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
Participants
Giuseppe Gibboni, violin (Italy)
Sinfonietta Rīga
Conductor Andris Veismanis