A Violin For All Seasons

Tasmin Little (violin & conductor) & BBC Symphony Orchestra

Encapsulating the voluptuous sound of the BBC SO’s strings, Tasmin Little is both the soloist and conductor in this unique coupling: Vivaldi’s ever-popular ‘Four Seasons’ meets Roxanna Panufnik’s Four World Seasons, the premiere recording of a set of highly inspirational pieces.

As a complete cycle, ‘The Four Seasons’ offers a set of vivid tableaux, imaginative, enticing, and wonderfully contrasted, with ample chance for the violin soloist to display technique, sensitivity, and colour. These are qualities that the British composer Roxanna Panufnik also sought for her own Seasons tribute, Four World Seasons, written for the violinist. Three of the pieces are dedicated to her, while the fourth, ‘Autumn in Albania’, is dedicated to the memory of Panufnik’s father, the Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, who, his daughter says, was born, loved, and died in autumn.

Panufnik, R:
 Four World Seasons

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons:
 Autumn, RV293
 Spring, RV269
 Summer, RV315
 Winter, RV297

"Although Tamsin Little isn’t a Baroque specialist there is some influence from historically informed performance: rubato is used discreetly, and vibrato, although more present than might be expected from an ‘authentic’ performance, is subtly varied…these are engaging performances, captured in warm but detailed sound."
BBC Music Magazine - Christmas 2016 ****

"These are modern-instrument performances of Vivaldi with a big symphonic string section. And if you haven’t already run screaming for your Fabio Biondi or La Serenissima sets, you’re going to enjoy this disc a lot...No Kennedy-like deconstruction here: Little simply responds to the music with an open-eyed freshness and fantasy…she is lively and conversational, and conveys a vivid sense of character to her colleagues."
Gramophone Magazine - December 2016