Presented on Naxos' streamlined Selection label, this recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is slimmed-down in just about every way possible. There are no liner notes apart from a track listing, so there's nothing to be learned about the music at hand, nor any of the performers. The actual sound of the recording is also quite lean -- as in too thin and treble heavy. The
Accademia Ziliniana does, at best, an adequate job of accompanying soloist Jindrich Pazdera. Their intonation is not always precise, and in fast passages articulations fail to line up across the orchestra. Even rapid ascending and descending scales are not executed with any abundance of accuracy. Pazdera's performance is equally lackluster and imprecise. Tempo selection is extremely conservative, and after listening to pyrotechnic alternatives like
Carmignola, some of the movements seem to practically come to a stand-still. Neither soloist nor orchestra offers listeners anything musically satisfying or intriguing, relegating this recording to something one might hear as background music in a department store. Apart from the bargain price, there's simply no reason to choose this recording over the plethora of far superior alternatives.