Vivaldi: La Stravaganza

VIVALDI (Arr. Roos) La stravaganza, op. 4/1,3–6,9,11 • Frédéric de Roos (rcr, cond); La Pastorella (period instruments) • RICERCAR 288 (56:29) Do you wish that Vivaldi had penned more concerti da camera ? (Not that you were lying awake at night thinking about it!) So do the members of La Pastorella, apparently. Doing nothing worse than what Baroque composers used to do all the time, they have taken seven concertos from La stravaganza , and arranged them for their ensemble, which consists of a violin (played by Mira Glodeanu), oboe (Benoît Laurent), cello (Hervé Douchy), bassoon (Alain de Rijckere), organ or harpsichord (Guy Penson), and guitar or theorbo (Philippe Malfeyt), all under the direction of recorder player de Roos. Does it work? Nicely. Does it replace Vivaldi’s originals? Of course not; but it complements them well. The originals are violin concertos. Sometimes the solo part remains assigned to the violin, but at other times it is reassigned to the re