Joshua Bell: A Personal Four Seasons

Joshua Bell is presenting his very own version of Vivaldi's „Four Seasons“. Described by his record company Sony as „cinematic and sumptuous“, the album is a joint effort with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, with whom he toured the „Seasons“, and juxtaposes this classic piece of programmatic music with Tartini's „The Devil's Trill“ - a concise virtual encore for an album otherwhise dedicated entirely to Vivaldi. Proactively anticipating questions about the relevance of recording one of the most popular works of the classical canon again, Joshua Bell commented: “You will never hear two versions of The Four Seasons that are alike, which is why I think there is always room for another view of the piece. My version is very personal. One could go overboard and make everything too pretty, and it’s nice to have the gutsier side of Baroque music. The [players] I admire in Baroque music really dig into it, and the violinists play with great abandon. I think with The Four Seasons you can’t be too deferential.” The album has already garnered some extremely positive pre-release press and has been put in line with some of the most successful post-Nigel Kennedy renditions, including Anne-Sophie Mutter's and the slender chamber music version championed by Jeanine Jansen.