Recordings of
Vivaldi's flute concertos have tended to concentrate on a few vivid, crowd-pleasing works from the composer's Op. 10 collection, like the Flute Concerto in F major, RV 433 ("La tempesta di mare"). The flutist who wants to venture beyond these is faced with a collection of works that exist only in manuscripts and come with a variety of editorial challenges. Some of those are laid out in the unusually extensive booklet that accompanies the CD version of this release on the Alpha label, which also comes with one of the label's trademark art reproductions and its own accompanying essay (this one covering a scene of Venice by Antonio Visentini, from close to the time
Vivaldi would have known it). The payoff is that, as with
Vivaldi's concertos for other genres, there are plenty of unknown gems to discover. This release by flutist-conductor
Alexis Kossenko and the small Polish early music group
Arte dei Suonatori combines some of the lesser-known Op. 10 concertos with manuscript works, and any
Vivaldi lover will find some fresh delights here. The group obtains some of its best results with some of the thorniest interpretive challenges. Hear the slow movement of the Flute Concerto in E minor, RV 430 (track 11), a work with a complex manuscript history; here the slow movement gets a heavily ornamented and quite haunting treatment from
Kossenko, accompanied only by a continuo theorbo. The ensemble tones down some of the slashing attacks favored by the leading Italian groups, but is plenty innovative stylistically; check out the unusual string crescendos in the last movement of the Flute Concerto in G major, RV 438 (track 16). All the music is freshly and sensitively done, and the collection of Baroque flutes played by
Kossenko is another attraction. Highly recommended.