Three hundred years after the publication of Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), Le Consort’s concert at Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle – led by Baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte – reimagined Vivaldi’s masterwork not as a closed cycle but as the expressive core of a wider meditation on contrast, invention and transformation. What emerged was not simply a series of concertos, but a subtly constructed dramaturgy, tracing Italian Baroque music’s journey from the abstract to the pictorial, from instrumental transcendence to vocal intensity.
The evening opened with Legrenzi’s Occhi miei si dormire, a poignant aria from La divisione del mondo. Short and subdued, it served as both an elegy and an invocation, establishing a tone of lyric intimacy and subtly evoking Vivaldi’s own familial connection to the Venetian operatic tradition.
The following pairing of Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in B minor, RV 168, and the expansive Concerto in D minor, RV 813, introduced the evening’s true expressive signature. These works were played with such vocal sensitivity that genre boundaries seemed to dissolve. Many phrases began with an enticing upbeat, shaped like a breath before a sung phrase. These singing qualities lent even purely instrumental sections a sense of sung expression, with subtle silences before and after solo violin’s cadence passages stretched just enough to manipulate audience expectation, mirroring the dramatic control of a master singer. The contrast between nearly inaudible bow strokes and full-bodied ensemble tuttis was astonishing; even in the quietest moments, the sound remained focused, suspended, and tense.
From this landscape of vocalised string textures emerged the familiar brightness of La Primavera. Yet even here, Le Consort avoided picturesque clichés: birdcalls and breezes became sharply profiled character gestures rather than decorative filigree. The final Allegro pastorale was played with exquisite taste, allowing the rhetorical arcs of the sonnet in original 1725 Amsterdam edition to subtly shape musical phrasing. A late-period Ciaccona (from RV 583) served as a graceful bridge: its sweetness and symmetry opened a path from E major to the stormy G minor of L’estate, where Vivaldi’s “Summer” Presto was achieved as a tactile storm – wood creaking, bows attacking with visceral power – but still tightly controlled.
After the intermission, Vivaldi’s overture to La fida ninfa once again highlighted his identity as an opera composer. L’autunno burst forth with rustic dances and comic drunkenness, rendered with gleeful rhythmic exaggeration and almost theatrical timing. This was followed by a second Ciaccona (RV 370), which mirrored the earlier one but shifted the emotional register: here the ground bass unfolded more gravely, its variations filled with introspection and shadow. The performance of L’inverno was the most exposed of the evening: the whispered opening was genuinely spellbinding. However, the dynamic balance in the first movement occasionally lacked projection, softening the intended impact. The second movement, by contrast, adopted a brisker-than-usual tempo that retained lyricism while injecting freshness and flow. The buzzing pedal tones of the basso continuo cello, combined with the plucked accompaniment from the other violins, once again evoked a striking sense of physicality.
Le Consort’s achievement lies in more than historical polish. This young ensemble has actively explored the expressive possibilities of instrumental music, uncovering the vocal soul within Vivaldi’s concertos and demonstrating a rare command of psychological tension through sound. These works were not treated as virtuosic showcases in the traditional concertato sense, but as tightly interwoven dialogues between soloist and consort, blurring the line between vocal phrasing and instrumental architecture. More than a commemoration, this concert made The Four Seasons feel freshly born: Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione indeed.
