KEY POINTS:
Vivaldi's flickering lighter-than-air mandolin concertos must be the closest thing in Baroque music to American bluegrass - and more than a few passages in Rolf Lislevand's new album of the composer's mandolin and lute music could pass for a discreet Flatt and Scruggs hoedown.
Musica per Mandolino e Liuto is the latest instalment in Naive Records' exhaustive and stylish Vivaldi Project.
In many respects the Italian composer is remarkably modern in his approach. His musical material is often bare bones, spun over harmonies that barely extend beyond the three or four chords of a pop song. But such are the colours he evokes through instrumental interplay, harmonic sophistication seems irrelevant.
What a kaleidoscope is revealed, from the leaf-rustling pizzicato of a G major concerto to the rustic earthiness of a D minor work featuring the autumnal song of a viola damore.
A D major Concerto for two violins and lute, best known as a guitar concerto, gives us one of the period's most celebrated slow movements.
Two Trios call for smaller forces; there is less of the high noon sun in the colours here and the Larghetto Lento of a C major work has pungent dissonances that could have come from the pen of the 20th century Spaniard Manuel De Falla.
Premium grade on all counts, the only price to be paid for an ultra-responsive recording is a surfeit of heavy breathing, although one unfortunate score shuffling before a movement could surely have been removed at the mixing stage.
Nigel North's second volume of lute music by John Dowland is a humbler affair but no less beguiling.
Doleful pavans and sprightlier galliards take us to the final Semper Dowland Semper Dolens.
The opening track, the celebrated Lachrimae Pavan, dominates the set, being quoted throughout other pieces with all the ardour of an arrant postmodernist.
A clean, uncluttered recording showcases the subtle shadings of North's 10-string instrument.
* Vivaldi, Music for Mandolin and Lute (Naive 30429, through Elite Imports); John Dowland, Lute Music 2 (Naxos 8.557862)
