The last thing anyone needs is ANOTHER recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, right? Not necessarily. Violinist Lara St. John teams up with the hit of last year's BBC Proms, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuala for a pairing you won't forget.
Conductor Eduardo Marturet leads the Youth Orchestra through Vivaldi's music with a wonderful fieriness, but it's when they are set loose on the other half of this recording that they really show their colors.
Juxtaposed with the baroque masterwork is Artur Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. This work not only reflects the duality of the Northern and Southern hemispheres by starting with Autumn and ending in Summer, but the music is packed with the sounds Piazzolla's home in Argentina.
Our quick pick this week is a recording I've been sitting on a while, but it's waited long enough. From the Dorian label in 2007 comes a period recording of Fr anz Schubert's song cycle Die schöne Müllerin (the lovely mill girl). Tenor John Elwes is accompanied by fortepianist Kenneth Slowik.