Mine too - Sorry for Mozart (still a beautiful Piece), but this one takes the cake.

Mine as well, followed closely by RV 498 in A Minor

I've heard this piece a few times too many. Who are your favourite players in this?

@@DelVivaldi I have four different versions of this concerto and Azzolini is definitely the most expressive, imaginative and creative with respect to interpretation which adds a special flavor. This improvisation may not be well liked by some and yet loved by others. I, for instance, enjoy very much Azzolini's interpretation but at the same time also enjoy Alberto Grazzi's performance as well with the English Concert under Trevor Pinnock. That's the spirit of 18th century music (Baroque). Having the freedom to play it differently and still have a fantastic performance :-)

​@@ilpretterossorocks​ Could not agree more. Some reviewers have criticized the ensemble playing in this series (the first three discs) as lacking in vigour or responsiveness or something to that effect. I do not share this view at all.

@@DelVivaldi I feel like there are two aspects of a recording that must be evaluated when judging it. One is performance, and the other is engineering. Those two can then be broken into sub-categories like Instrument types/ensemble size (performance) or location/arrangement of equipment and players (engineering). I think this series, very generally, is hard for me to judge fairly on the performance side, because the way it is recorded and the acoustics of the location muddle some of the performance aspects. The orchestra sounds big to me, and murky, with mushy edges that mitigate attack and articulation variety. This also dulls the tone of the instruments to my ear some, which isn't a great strategy for recording the bassoon in particular. Some of this may leak into performance. I think the size of the orchestra and some of their manners of playing contribute to a mushy sound (though it isn't an unusually large group). To one ear this may sound Venetian, watery, magical, misty, atmospheric. And to a degree, I think this is generally true and likeable. But I do so value the clarity, the directness and variety of articulation, the accents and the transparency plus synergy of the baroque sound. Too much muddling mitigates these strengths in a recording. I also tend to dislike large series done by one group. It took some time to notice this pattern. At some point I became convinced of the correlation. I think many good recordings have been made of an opus by groups with a soloist. For 12 Vivaldi concerti, it's manageable to avoid decadent rot and intensely studying a group of concerti can create insight. Rachel Podger seems really good in that situation. But bigger projects wherein one group and soloist attack all of a large group of works seem to waver in quality. Specifically, they tend to gravitate to a mannered, 'bored' sounding approach. Think the worst instincts of Fabio Biondi (remembering that Biondi delivers many inspired recordings, too). When he's at his worst he sounds mannered, his decision-making is off (I think on one of his opus 8 complete recordings he made the conscious decision to do all his trills as though he was unable to do normal, rapid trills, this is a poor one in my opinion) and he tends to give off the impression that he's bored and desperate to pump blood into the music with fidgeting articulation or over the top changes in tempo. I tend to think this series has a quiet version of this problem. It's not the garish or wildly off. There's daring, restless liberties and ornamentation, but also nice subtleties. But to me it has the symptoms I find with these large one-artist series. I'm a painter and I think an analogy is painting something so large that you can't step away from it and take in the whole the way you normally do to see if it is coming together. Another painting analogy would be painting 39 landscapes of the same region with similar style and color palette consecutively over a period of time. Might it not be better for your vision, passion and ability to manipulate the subtleties to do something a little different between smaller chunks of the 39 to clear the palette? Another symptom, beyond artistic vision issues, is a general slipping of regard for tone and sound quality. I don't know if it is budget related, or because of numbness and exhaustion or some mix. I have not connected with this series like I hoped I would have. It's a tough recording challenge. An example of one that went quite a bit worse to my ear is the complete cello concerti as recorded by Galligioni/L'Aerte dell'Arco. On the other hand an impressive success is L'archicembalo's recording of the Concerti without soloist (along with 'attatched' sinfonias). Interestingly, both these sets are on Brilliant Classics. Even the normally steadfast Simon Standage was inconsistent in recording the Concerti without soloist (I find Vol 1 the least appealing, vol 2 the most, and vol 3 in between). Going a long ways back, I feel like Carmignola and the VBO's series of late violin concerti left something to be desired in hindsight, even though they are pretty good and blazed an important trail. I found them very uniform, but the sound and balance of the orchestra left a lot to be desired, and though expressive and passionate on the surface, I found Carmignola's solo work a bit glib and similar in approach between movements and works. I guess this Bassoon series is the new version of that for me.

@@ConanNugga I make a point not to speak too disparagingly of world-class musicians but I have no such qualms for sound engineers. This, the first volume, was probably the best recorded of the bassoon series unfortunately. I have no idea of what Naïve is doing nowadays. Someone should have their ears checked.

I does not seem so strange to me. The relaxed pace in the first movement is in line with the Allegro poco indication. I think it could be taken still slower. The more a piece is performed, the more critical we become of interpretation. I see this piece as rather reflective, inwardly agitated, just like you describe.

Del Vivaldi By strange, I meant uncommon. I agree with you completely.

Now this comment is very badly written, I was wondering if the grace notes in the theme should be lombard, even or in a dotted rythmn

Grace notes in the baroque period are played differently. They take up more of the “host note.” So the grace note isn’t played as fast as you would think in modern times.

@@alexalestareon695 thank you!

But grace notes in this case should be played ON the beat

I will try to do that.

Thanx a lot!