The complete set of Vivaldi bassoon concertos being undertaken by the Naxos label, bassoonist
Tamás Benkócs, and the
Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia under
Béla Drahos may seem like overkill, but don't knock the idea until you've heard this disc or one of the others in the series. Vivaldi wrote 39 concertos for bassoon and orchestra, most or all of them intended for the young virtuosi of his all-girl orchestra at the Ospedale della Pietà. They are a decidedly underrated corner of his output, dedicated perhaps more than anything else he wrote to the ideal of sheer virtuosity. Many of the outer movements here are almost like technical studies in the demands they make on the bassoonist;
Benkócs lands cleanly on percussive notes at the bottom of the bassoon's range and then leaps gracefully back up to the high beam of the main line. Yet all the virtuosity is, as usual with Vivaldi, embedded in examples of fascinating structural thinking. The music grabs your attention right at the beginning with the incorporation of the bassoon into the dramatic opening tutti of the Concerto in D minor, RV 481, and among the numerous other beauties in these concertos is the hovering mode mixture in the first movement of the Concerto in C major, RV 477 (track 7), beautifully unpacked in the solos. The
Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia is a group of top-flight Hungarian orchestral players, using modern instruments but entering fully into the spirit of Vivaldi's music in light, sweet performances that bring out its proto-galant qualities. Add in unusually clear sound from a Hungarian recording studio and you have a recording any Vivaldi lover or wind player will enjoy.