Vivaldi vs Piazzolla
‘Spring has returned and with it gaiety is greeted by the birds in joyous song.’ So goes the sonnet prefacing Vivaldi’s immortal Four Seasons, a work of creative vitality and sheer joy that has been drawing people to classical music for centuries.
Tango master Astor Piazzolla quotes the Vivaldi masterpiece in his loving depiction of his adopted city. Written for tango quintet between 1964 and 1970, it was later adapted for string orchestra by Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, and alongside the Vivaldi it now makes an ideal coupling of classics old and new.