Guido: Scherzi Armonici sopra le Quattro Stagioni – Balding

Every spring another obscure Baroque violin concerto turns up promising to be the “real” inspiration for Vivaldi, and every spring I approach the claim with a raised eyebrow and an open ear. This time, though, the case is worth entertaining a little longer than usual.

Giovanni Antonio Guido — a Neapolitan by birth who spent much of his working life in Paris, in the orbit of the Regent Philippe d’Orléans, no less — published his Scherzi Armonici sopra le Quattro Stagioni dell’Anno as his op. 3, probably around 1716 or 1717. That would put it several years ahead of Vivaldi’s ubiquitous Four Seasons, which didn’t reach print until 1725 as part of the op. 8 collection Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione. Chronology is a slippery business with manuscripts this old, and I wouldn’t stake my reputation on priority claims either way. But the resemblances — a rushing figuration here, a pastoral drone there, a sudden tremolo suggesting distant thunder — are too close to be pure coincidence. Somebody heard somebody.

What Guido lacks, frankly, is Vivaldi’s ruthless concision, his knack for making a single gesture stand for an entire season in eight bars flat. Guido rambles, in the most agreeable way. Where Vivaldi’s Summer scorches by in eleven or twelve minutes, Guido’s L’Esté takes nearly twenty, ambling through episodes that feel more like a suite of character pieces than a tightly argued concerto. And there’s the French seasoning too — trace elements of Lully’s dance rhythms, a Corellian sweetness in the slow movements, courtly ornaments that never quite existed in Vivaldi’s Venice. The result sits at a fascinating crossroads: Italianate bravura filtered through French politesse, like a gondolier who has taken dancing lessons at Versailles.

This account by Caroline Balding and the Band of Instruments — a chamber-scaled ensemble of two violins, cello, contrabass, and harpsichord, considerably reduced from the winds-and-strings forces Grove’s suggests Guido intended — was taped in 2004 and has waited eight years to see daylight on Divine Art. No explanation is offered for the delay, and none, really, is needed; the rendition justifies the wait. Balding plays with a bright, unforced tone, articulate rather than aggressive, and she lets the writing breathe without indulging in the exaggerated affekt so fashionable among period-instrument soloists chasing viral video clips. The birdsong figures in “Le Printems” chirp without shrieking. The storm in “L’Autonne” — Guido’s hunting scene, all horn-call arpeggios and galloping bass — has real dramatic snap, even in modest instrumental garb.

Competition is nearly nonexistent, oddly enough, given the novelty appeal. Federico Guglielmo recorded the piece with L’Arte dell’Arco for CPO, also in 2004, paired improbably with the Vivaldi on a single disc — a feat achieved, I gather, only by cutting Guido down to skeletal proportions: seven minutes for Spring, under four for Summer. Whatever that release is, it isn’t the piece Hamilton and company give us here, complete and unhurried. The two performances aren’t really comparable so much as different objects entirely.

Roger Hamilton’s direction keeps ensemble textures transparent — you can hear the harpsichord’s arpeggiations clearly threading beneath the string lines, never buried, never showy. Intonation throughout is admirably secure, tuning sweet without sounding sterile, and the recorded sound has warmth without excessive resonance. I’d have liked slightly more bite from the bass line in the faster movements, a touch more rhythmic snap in the gigue-like finales. Small complaints.

Is this an indispensable disc? Not indispensable, no — but valuable, and more than a curiosity. Anyone who loves the Vivaldi owes it to themselves to hear what else was in the air of early eighteenth-century Europe, and to discover that inventiveness didn’t begin and end with the Red Priest. Guido deserves this hearing, and Balding gives him one he can be proud of.