Vivaldi
No More Seasons

George Kentros (violin)
with Mattias Petersson
(live electronics)

SEKT records SEKTC001 [44 mins]

Vivaldi's The Seasons (1723) is fair game for diverse treatments and maltreatments nearly three hundred years on. Before reading further, watch Red Priest's version of a movement from Spring on YouTube.

The seasons are "all mixed up" nowadays, say Kentros & Petersson, who "only play new music". So for this new disc they are re-ordered and teamed up with uncompromising electronic sounds of today instead of a string orchestra.

American born George Kentros is the violinist of peärls before swïne, a Swedish group we've enjoyed who are "determined to keep fresh and not to just repeat themselves", and this disc is typically innovative in recreating Vivaldi without "the cultural sheen in which violin concertos usually exist".

I liked it; my wife hates it... Give it a try. Listen to Autumn 3, one of the less abrasive tracks, and see them in action on Summer 2.

Peter Grahame Woolf

See also Musical Pointers reviews of peärls before swïne CDs