Vivaldi: La Stravaganza 12 Violin Concertos

There are slow movements of sublime fantasy and hearth–rending beauty. It is here above that soloist and director Rachel Podger makes her most distinctive and original contributions.

Rachel Podger has reached a new pinnacle in exploiting Vivaldi's hidden qualities. With depth, especially in the lyrically played slow parts. Podger also manages to combine the breakneck sections in a serious way with excellent ensemble playing.

Podger plays with such a lilting musicality that even the strongest critic will change their mind after listening. Hats off to the baroque orchestra that accompanies Podger with a swinging and razor-sharp edge in their performances.

The album features an ensemble with high technical standards. Podger is a technical miracle. The musicians give the whimsical music of Vivaldi a little bit of yearning in the slow parts, with Podger getting the most out of each selection.

Rachel Podger has become one of the foremost specialists in baroque music. Fresh, virtuoso and especially driving playing is combined with the sharp use of contrasts and alternated with pure lyricism on this album. It is a musical experience!

This is certainly the finest Vivaldi release in years.

We can be brief about this album. It is jubilant summer music, excellently performed and recorded beautifully and clearly.

Rachel Podger plays with a musicality, a freshness, a technical mastery and a sense of style to be proud of. The magnificent baroque ensemble Arte dei Suonari confirms its reputation with enormous enthusiasm.

Podger tells a subtle musical story through clever tempo choices, remarkably well-tempered intonation, and lots of fancy right-hand articulation.

The fine accompaniments provided by the remarkable homogeneous Polish-based Baroque orchestra prove that the best in Baroque playing might well have moved east from the well-established centers of learning in London and Amsterdam.

I was shocked to find myself listening to the whole lot of this album in one sitting. Merrily finding each piece to be its own vivid drama. And I have eagerly returned to them several times since.

Rachel Podger and the Polish baroque orchestra Arte dei Suonatori prove worthy to the task. Endlessly varying texture, and attack to keep the listener on the edge of his or her seat.

Superior recording, handsome presentation, in-depth notes from producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwood and from Rachel Podger herself, and performances that remind us why we became addicted to music in the first place, make this a truly formidable release, deserving of all the many awards it will receive.

Somewhere, that red-haired priest Vivaldi (‘Il prete rosso,’ they called him) must be cackling with joy to hear his invention catch fire once again.

Gramophone Baroque Album of the Year - 2003

What I like most of all is Podger's evident relish of the virtuoso demands that the music makes. She rises splendidly to them, making the most of Vivaldi’s extravagant writing.

This recording is beyond question triumphantly successful.  It is like a breath of fresh air in every respect.

This is one of the most immediately inviting Multichannel recordings I’ve heard.  Full of effortlessly crafted, tonally grateful detail and conveying a fine sense of an aptly scaled acoustic.

The La Stravaganza set is quite extravagant stuff, full of fantasy and experiment – novel sounds, ingenious textures, exploratory melody lines, original types of figuration, unorthodox forms.  The performances by Rachel Podger are crackling with vitality and executed with consistent brilliance.  It is a performance that will leave you breathless. She haplessly catches the aristocratic tone of the invention.

Rachel Podger is one my favorite Baroque violinists. The sense of creative interplay between soloist and orchestra is palpable.

The sound of both soloist and orchestra is rich, lively, and clear textured.

Podger responds to the extrovert, the lyrical, and the unexpected in Vivaldi and she is one of those great performers who passes on her enthusiasms to the listener. This, I'm sure, is what Vivaldi should sound like.

Rachel is a spirited violinist in the best sense. The music on this album is expertly performed and beautifully recorded.

Rachel Podger is in a class with Andrew Manze. Neither is afraid to riff wildly, and both have a spectacular innate rhythm and sense of the arc of a movement, which allows them to embellish a line without ever distorting it. In addition, they refuse to treat even more routine music routinely, invariably finding, say, an inner dissonance or quirk in scoring to emphasize. Both can be aggressive, and both can opt for true sensitivity. Podger's take on the opening of No.2 is positively dainty.

Arte dei Suonatori is a Polish period-instrument orchestra. They and Podger manage a give-and-take that defines teamwork and joy in music-making. Each member is more than up to his or her task.

These 12 concertos were not intended to be listened to in one sitting. But I've found it easier to take a bunch at a time from this recording than from any other.

It's easy to take Vivaldi for granted.  Here, it's impossible.