Joshua Bell’s The Four Seasons

Posted by Sony BMG Masterworks

August 22, 2008

By Daniel Felsenfeld

For a long time, I was convinced I never wanted to hear Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons again. It was one of those over-trotted-out warhorses, a burnt chestnut, spoiled meat…just name your cliché! After years of over saturation (though somehow never actually voluntarily listening to it; this is one of those cultural phenomena where you can know a piece of music intimately and yet not own a recording, ever have heard a concert, or even listen to the radio—this happens with Pachabel’s overly-famous canon as much as it happens with songs by, say, Christina Aguilera), I was done. Finished. It was not going to hook me with its evil diamond-commercial, aren’t-we-classy ways. I had evolved past this collection of twee baroque fripperies written to sell me insurance or jewelry. I would not fall for it.

My mind changed in Carnegie Hall several years ago when I (reluctantly) saw Anne-Sophie Mutter play and conduct this piece. Such power held in reserve; such masterful colors from Vivaldi, who uses his strict and unflinching harmonic palate to create small miracles. It was like discovering a piece for the first time, except I knew every bar. Then I heard a recording with Janine Jansen playing, and again revised my opinion. Such elegance, such seasonal grace. I began to understand what overexposure can do to even a great piece of music, but when I listened—really listened—I understood what Bach saw in the so-called “Red-Headed Priest” from the Venice of long ago. Once past the opening “Primavera” movement, the “hook” that used to make me groan, this is a kaleidoscopic survey of timbre and color, paced like a piece by Brahms but with the austere harmonies of the baroque, and there are some truly “modern” and even shocking moments in it. Forget the on-screen elegance this piece often suggests as it has been unfairly twisted into a backup track for the pictures or the box; this is a whirlwind of a work, full of jagged corners, glorious sunsets, and it pulls and pushes and packs a punch.

When Joshua Bell’s recording turned up on my doorstep, I did the usual “oh-so-another-recording-of-this” groan/dismissal. But forced by obligation to do some listening and respond here (a dream job if ever there was one), and man am I glad that is true, because this is another of those “Wow!” discs forcing a redefinition of my original and unfair opinion.

So glad I was wrong. Human, all too human.

To me, the true test of a performance of this work is the “Winter” portion, which remains to me the most modern. In the first movement, manic textural shifts about—it opens with a “scratchy” bit (for lack of a better word) that for my money should sound like we are unsure in which century this piece might have been written. It then careers from place to place, and the smart performance from soloist and orchestra catches fire and takes these lightening shifts without reservation or apology. Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields certainly do this!

The real test comes in the second movement, the “Largo,” with those icy pizzicati. This might be the least flashy of all the movements, but it is the most intimate, the most delicate, the most naked—it really sounds like a bleak midwinter. This was the moment that Ms. Mutter converted me, and Ms. Jansen finally persuaded me. Bell measures up, taking a more austere approach: his winter sounds like he might be inside by a roaring fire, contemplating. But it is effective, brittle and understated, an effective countermeasure to the fireworks that preceded it and the stark tension to follow, with more fireworks to follow that. Bell (pace Vivaldi) in repose is a glorious sight (sound) to behold (behear?), and by this he adds yet another important recording of this much maligned (by me, mostly) piece.

Please visit www.Violinist.com for Joshua Bell’s the Hollywood Bowl concert review, the upcoming interview and CD giveaways!!!

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In This Blog:
Joshua Bell: Antonio Vivaldi “The Four Seasons”

For more information, visit www.JoshuaBell.com.