Daily Telegraph - 12 Oct 2002

This week's discs celebrate the music and musicians of Venice. Not so long ago, when the rehabilitation of Vivaldi's instrumental music was still in its earlier stages, he was sometimes dismissed as having written not 600 concertos, but the same concerto 600 times.

Such a view would probably command little assent today, but if final proof of its injustice is still needed, it is triumphantly provided by a new recording of L'estro armonico from the group L'arte dell'arco, directed by Christopher Hogwood.

....

Fire and Ice, Musica Antiqua of London's collection of Venetian love songs from much earlier in the 16th century, is a livelier affair. All the pieces are in a straightforward strophic form. While some are light-hearted, even risque, others set texts as anguished as any chosen by later madrigalists. Some of the composers are anonymous, but even those who are not - such as Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Marco Cara - are hardly household names. But their music is most attractive, and in these performances, which communicate an infectious sense of enjoyment and enthusiasm, makes thoroughly satisfying listening. Philip Thorby's imaginatively planned programme begins with a sequence of short pieces evoking high jinks early on a spring morning, before turning to more serious matters of love and loss. Half the items are excellently sung by the mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson, whose words are crystal-clear throughout, and accompanied by renaissance guitar or ensembles of strings or recorders. The rest are crisply played in instrumental arrangements of the day.

Elizabeth Roche