Daniel Rowland and the Stellenbosch University Camerata have been performing this spicy cocktail of eight seasons since the ensemble was formed in 2008. Piazzolla's Four Seasons, originally written for a small band with the composer himself paying bandoneon and here performed in one of a number of subsequent arrangements for string ensemble, consists of four portraits of Buenos Aires, urban counterparts to Vivaldi's portraits of rural life. Rowland and his players tackle them in a suitable frenzy of heat and colour, the quotations from Vivaldi peeking cheekily out from the potent mix of vibrant rhythms, complete with percussion, and the welter of glissandos and ponticello effects.

The Vivaldi, too, is vividly performed. In the fast movements, and they are fast, tuttis are clipped and dry. The performance conforms to the current approach to historically informed interpretation, with modern players on modern instruments taking what they will from their period colleagues. Rowland, his vibrato rich and unfettered, treats the score very much as a first draft, a basis for improvisation to be executed with a rhythmic freedom that works wonderfully in jazz, but can be unsettling in this context as he parts company from his colleagues, who are left clinging grimly to the beat. It's all good pictorial stuff, with Rowland to the fore in a resonant acoustic.

What to make of yet another recording of Vivaldi’s ubiquitous Four Seasons? The challenge to any performer trying to make a meaningful statement with this music is overwhelming. One way is by pairing it with another “Four Seasons”, Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, as Gidon Kremer and Lara St John have both done in recent years, in performances with modern-instrument ensembles. Daniel Rowland’s new recording for the New Zealand label, TwoPianists, follows suit. Daniel Rowland, a Dutch-born violinist with impeccable credentials, who has studied with Igor Oistrakh and Ivry Gitlis among others, is currently the leader of the London-based Brodsky String Quartet. Despite the risks involved, Rowland rises to the occasion on this release. His Vivaldi Seasons are highly engaging, giving the score an improvisatory, organic quality, creating the impression of being both polished and delightfully messy at the same time. In the Piazzolla, Rowland takes this approach even further, and you feel transported to the cafés of Latin America, with his spicy, lyrical, and off-the-cuff playing style. In a sea of recordings, this disc succeeds because it goes to great lengths to bring out the many characters of the music, always in interesting and unexpected ways.

Most every student of music history at some point will study Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (1725), the group of violin concerti unique because of Vivaldi’s attempt to paint musical pictures without words—sonnets describing the seasons append the score. It is perhaps next to the Bach Brandenburg Concertos, one of the most recorded works in the Baroque canon. Academics like to point out that though Vivaldi was credited with writing some 600 concertos that they are essentially the same concerto written 600 times with different keys or solo instruments. Such comments, coming from a musicological preference for the complex “superior” music of Northern German where the academic study of music essentially began, still cannot stem this music from being popular. For my part, Vivaldi’s work is the sort of light and exciting Baroque music that is varied enough to illustrate the primary characteristics of the period quite easily—though the need for a new recording of such a warhorse seems redundant.

To help freshen up this masterwork, chamber orchestras are beginning to program Astor Piazzolla’s modern inspiration, The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, alongside the Vivaldi (such a program will make its appearance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in the 2010-2011 season). Piazzolla’s work, written over a period of six years in the 1960s, was originally for the sort of Argentinean folk ensemble that eventually caught the attention of worldwide audiences. The piece was conceived for bandoneon (a cousin to the accordion or concertina) with guitar, double bass and piano and has since been arranged for the same forces as the Vivaldi. The work plays out to about 25 or so minutes making it a perfect companion for its inspiration and is incorporated here alongside the Vivaldi concerti in alternation.

Daniel Rowland is a young violinist born in London but raised in the Netherlands who has been touring widely the past few years. His triumphant tour through South Africa included time to make this recording in 2008 featuring the debut ensemble the Stellenbosch University Camerata (after their enthusiastically-received concert of this same music). The ensemble is made up of faculty and students.

“Spring” practically bursts forth in a rush of energy that at times veers dangerously close to being out of control. It seems to come from the school of thought that playing the music faster somehow adds intensity. Fortunately, Rowland’s approach to the solo part is equally energetic perhaps giving a glimpse of the red-haired priest’s own musical personality. The ensemble manages to keep up fairly well with Rowland in the opening movement though the bird calls do not come off quite as well (the music is simply zipping by too quickly for it to come off well). The overall crispness of the performance though is to be admired. The opening of “Summer” has the proper languidness before it too zips along. Again, the virtuosity of Rowland’s
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