Vivaldi, played badly, is the worst classical music on earth

If y'all want to hear Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" for the First Time, take in an informed early music performance by Brecon Baroque lead by Rachael Podger.  Buy the CD.  Extraordinary performance, recording quality and dynamics.   What's interesting about this performance is that there is only one player on a part.  Not a big, over blown, cumbersome orchestra.  This is baroque chamber music played the way it was meant to be played.

Link on Amazon

You can easily find this on YouTube, but you won't hear the dynamics.  Buy the CD.  Really.  Just do it.

Brecon Baroque is on Tidal, yeay. :)

And on LP! Thanks Russ, another good Vivaldi recording by Podger is "L'Estro Armonico".

I'm glad you made this post Erik--i had forgotten a note i'd made to myself a few years ago about a new Vivaldi performance of the 4 seasons by Adrian Chandler who both conducts and plays the violin--it was intriguing because they used a 3 string violin which Vivaldi wrote for and was in use when the piece was composed--or something like that.  I ran across a review of it in the Gramophone Newsletter.  At the time i could not find it to listen and soon forgot--but now that i can stream i have discovered it on Tidal, MQA and since i haven't heard that music since my wedding 32 years ago i guess i can take it 😀   Here's a link to the review which i had sent to myself in an email and found again although i don't see any reference to the 3 string violin here but they do mention it on Tidal.
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/vivaldi-the-four-seasons-bassoon-concertos

And BTW, anything involving a violin played badly is the worst music on Earth--like nails on a blackboard !

hehe, I mean, I've heard a lot of Vivaldi which was just.... banal. Fatuous.

It wasn't like me pretending to play a violin, but it just all seemed boring and flat.

When I was a kid out of school in the summer, I told my Scottish grandmother I was bored .She turned her Glasgow laser eyes on me and said , "" if you are bored it's because you are boring .""

Best advice I ever got .

If you're tired of "The Four Seasons," this record is a really enjoyable reworking of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recomposed_by_Max_Richter:_Vivaldi_–_The_Four_Seasons

I heard on WFMT and found it on Tidal as well.

If you want excitement, after listening to Biondi's Four Seasons, listen to this.  https://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Symphony-No-6-Teodor-Currentzis/dp/B01MS9VBKH

OK, maybe we're a little off topic but

@john_g--radically fun version of Four Seasons-played well !

@twoleftears -- haven't listened to the 6th in years but i will listen to this version again and again..thanks

I just want to take a moment out to thank everyone who has replied with sincerity, and recordings to listen to.

You've all made this a more informative and fun thread than I could have honestly imagined.

Thank you.

Erik