Antonio Vivaldi, English Chamber Orchestra, Nigel Kennedy - Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons [Complete]

Best Ever

This is the finest rendition of the Four Seasons I have ever heard. Kennedy plays with such passion, he pulls your own emotion out! Kennedy truly immerses himself into the piece and is able to convey heartfelt passions for each "season" throughout the piece. Over the years I have listened to this CD hundreds of times...and each time I hear something new. Just a masterful version by Kennedy. A "must have" for your collection, even if you own other renditions of the Four Seasons. December 7, 2008

What's not to like???

I have been enjoying The Four Seasons ever since I was a child (im 43now)and, although I love it in its entirety, some parts I found to be a little boring. I am not a classic music expert, but I do enjoy it a lot. Granted that Nigel's interpretation (which I have been enjoying since it came out) is a little faster than what we are used to, whichever orchestra and director, but makes it a little more interesting.
For those critics that, apparently know a great deal about classic music, I dare you to grab a violin and try to emulate what this man can do, I bet you wouldn't even get a straight note out of it.
Anyhow, for those of us that don't know anynthing about the technicalities of classic music, I think is a great interpretation. It's like drinking wine, you drink the one you like no matter how old it is, or where it came from, or what kind it is.
Just listen closely, feel the mood, and enjoy... April 2, 2008

Too perfect to express any sentiment

Antonio Vivaldi was a priest, what's more a red-haired one, i.e. quite a marginal in this field of non-religious music, and his music was mostly composed for the orchestra of a young girls' religious school. And yet he is sublime to the most extreme point with conception, with understanding, with passionate comprehension. So that the English Chamber Orchestra here is by far too massive and muscular to satisfy the desire that makes us crave for finesse, delicacy, hues, nuances, shades, etc. And the only shades are those the musicians put over their eyes to impose a filter onto the music, the filter of technical perfection to the expense of emotional expressivity. So these Four Seasons are just perfect, well read, but they are rendered homogeneously, Easter in December and July in Winter. And that is of course regrettable. A little bit more personal temperament would give this music a charm it cannot have when the temper of perfection is trying to make it absolutely right. I would have preferred the vision of an erring pilgrim through the four seasons of his pilgrimage to that of a trip down the road in a vehicle that is so well pruned that nothing protrudes at all anywhere. Could we speak of aerodynamic music?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
March 23, 2008

Best Selling Classical Record of all time

I have yet to hear anyone who is capable of playing the violin like Nigel,
and to be able to interpret classicals like him. Before he came along with this album, I think most people was ready to fall off a chair with snooze whenever we hear Vivaldi, because it was always played in the same old stale way that we have heard a million times. He comes along with this album, close your eyes when you listen to it, and he paints the four seasons with the violin vividly.
Ever since the release of this album, everyone else just tries to copy his work. But no one plays the notes as effortlessly and eloquently as he has. Take Sarah Chang, for eg.--botched it. You can hear her fingers straining over the strings clumsily, trying to do what Nigel did, but doing such a horrible job. I felt sorry for her when I heard her work.

This is a must have for anyone--if you are trying to get someone into classical music, this is the perfect album.
March 12, 2008

Love It

Powerful and passionate are the first two words that come to mind when I think about Kennedy's version of the Four Seasons. I absolutely love it. I listen to this CD on my ipod on every plane trip I take, often 2-4 times a month. I never tire of it. I have listened to this CD more times than any other CD I own, with the possible exception of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Buy it.


November 14, 2007

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