Martin Fröst’s new album is a baroque adventure based on the question: What might Vivaldi have composed for the clarinet if it had been more fully developed? For this recording three clarinet concertos have been newly composed, made up of music drawn from Vivaldi’s most beautiful opera and oratorio arias. Martin Fröst and Concerto Köln create a wonderful symbiosis between the old and the new.
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REVIEW:
Fröst is an outstanding musician and every operatic roulade and embellishment is expertly turned with the precision of a master craftsman. Do they convince as concertos? Not especially, but I don’t think that’s the point. What make these enjoyable works in their own right are the florid writing and operatic drama of the outer movements and the incredible tenderness that Vivaldi lavished on some of his slow arias.
