The holy grail for Vivaldi lovers
R. Miller | Toledo, Ohio USA | 06/16/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I bought this as a record back in the 70's, and was pleased to find it had been redone on a CD. I am one of those Vivaldi-lovers, and this is the best, most spirited and lovingly played Vivaldi I've ever heard, and I've heard a lot. All those big names on the cover are not just there for show: these are the best performances by the best players, and as far as I'm concerned the best conductors, too. (I will go out of my way to find Ormandy-conducted performances of just about anything.)
At the end of the one live performance on the album, you can hear the people jump out of their seats to applaud and cheer. It's just about what I still do when I get to the end of this CD. This is Great Stuff!"
Isaac Stern + Antonio Vivaldi = Excellence
Joe Anthony (a.k.a. JAG 1) | Massachusetts, USA | 12/07/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is more of an anthology than a "gala event" as the packaging would have you believe. It is, however, a wonderful collection of violinist Isaac Stern's most interesting collaborations in the genre of Vivaldi's concertos for multiple instruments.
Isaac Stern has always been my favorite violinist. He seems to have a very crisp and full tone. He brings a great deal of warmth to these concertos, which is important in that Vivaldi's concertos can sound repititious after a while. He wrote 500 of them and some people say he wrote the same fast-slow-fast concerto 500 times.
This collection also features Jean-Pierre Rampal from France (probably the world's most foremost flautist); David Oistrakh from the old USSR (a much underated and under-recorded master violinist); and Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman from Israel (two great violin masters who are still with us, as they were from a younger generation than their mentor Isaac Stern).
I have owned this recording on vynal for over 20 years and I still enjoy it today. I like it as much for the great Isaac Stern as I do like it for the composer Antonio Vivaldi whose music can be very pretty at times."