The Excelsior brand

Brought to you by the people at Sam Goody. I must say that the Excelsior brand of classical CDs is far and away the best thing that Sam Goody has ever done. The CDs never cost more than $6 and the sound quality is up to par. Granted that the sound quality is not top notch; the bass line is weak and the sharpness is lacking, but it still is CD quality. And the copy of the Four Seasons that I own on the Excelsior brand is my favorite of the Four Seasons.

Maybe it is because it was the first one that I owned, and thus the first that I listened to, but this is the best that I have heard. If you can't tell by now, I like the power side of music. And this recording is the most powerful that I have heard. My particular favorite thing to do is to drop the pitch and octave and listen to it at an even deeper level. In all the Four Seasons last about 42 minutes total, and that is a good length. Sometimes the time could vary by as much as a couple of minutes. Resulting in a slower sounding piece, or on the flipside, a piece on caffeine.

All in all, this recording works as a team, as I think the Four Seasons should. The harpsichord sits in the back and harps when it is supposed to. The violin goes nuts when it is supposed to. And the orchestra as a whole works in unison making a unified sound and power. No body is showing off. It is the basic Four Seasons.

Some cheap recording

Hear is a recording I got one day just so I could see the difference in recording. I think this CD cost me a whole whopping $2.50. In the end I was left unimpressed. It sounds like the Excelsior recording except the players are half-asleep or too timid to be powerful. It is the lazyman's Four Seasons.

Ok, so maybe I am being harsh. It is actually a rather good recording. The presentation is tight, and the players do their thing. To put it in a nicer light, it is the basic Four Seasons. There are no interpretation or slight variations like most recordings out there. But the Excelsior copy is still more powerful.

Itzhak Perlman plays the Four Seasons.

I will say this, Itzhak Perlman is just plain cool. He has fun playing the violin and you can tell. So it is natural that he would record the Four Seasons, like everybody else does. But I fear that it ended up being the Itzhak Perlman Show. You see, it basically sounds like the two previous recordings, but with more sound clarity and about $10 more expensive. The orchestra plays the Four Seasons like it should, the timing is good, but the Violin seems to have a life of its own. Frankly, the violin is showing off. It was as if Itzhak felt the need to do the violin different than what anybody else has done. But the orchestra stays the same. So in the end, you get a splendid recording, and it is nice to have variety and to also hear the great playing of Perlman, but to me, the Four Seasons is a team effort. To me the violin taking center stage was more of a distraction than a pleasure. Sorry.

Vanessa-Mae, The Original Four Seasons.

Oh boy, here comes the fun part.

First off, I beg to ask what the hell the photographer was thinking making Vanessa look as disturbing as possible. There is a reason why you cannot see the picture enlarged.

Anyway, it is what is on the inside that counts. And there is a lot of it.

Ok, so I have not read the entire booklet, but I have read enough. Apparently Vanessa and crew new that it is pretty silly to just record another recording of the Four Seasons. Considering there are about four gajillion recordings of it out there, what would be the point? Unless you did something different. And boy did they ever!

So what has gone down is that apparently Vanessa and the gang have gotten a group of world-renowned musicians together. Each one is award winning and prodigal. So you have a really talented bunch here. Second, and this is where I say, "Right on!" Vanessa and gang have seen the fact that this is a piece of music written for a chamber orchestra, and that is what has been put together. They are not trying to out do it by getting more people than they need. Thirdly, and I find this intriguing yet disturbing at the same time, Vanessa points out that since time immemorial, or at least since music has been written, music has been screwed around with. This means that players and conductors have always messed around with what was originally written. Even the writers of the music themselves do this and condone it. And I see the point, have some fun, be creative. And that is exactly what Vanessa and gang do.

What we end up with is by far the most varied recording that I have heard of the Four Seasons. It is great to have this diversity to show what can be done. But then I run into my problem again. I fear what we have here is a chamber orchestra where each member is trying to out do the other one. Not necessarily be louder or more prominent, but trying to vary the Four Seasons as it was originally written for their instrument so much so, that at times I swear I could hardly recognize the Four Seasons.

Which I must say that at the same time is good and nice ting to do, but also at the same time is disturbing.

I don't know, maybe it is a pet peeve I have with people messing with the Four Seasons. Maybe it is because I think the Four Seasons has never been taken to its ultimate end. An end I have in my head. And end that if was able to get out would be one of the great moments of my life. And a moment that is impossible considering my lack of capabilities. So in the end, I end up dreaming and criticizing others when they do not dream what I dream.

Yet now that I think about it, this recording is quite something. I want you to read something, and read it carefully:

Spring has come, and joyfully the birds announce
it in a happy song and the brooks flow at the breath of
zephyrs with content murmuring. Meanwhile: the dark
sky gathers and there is thunder and lightning
Afterwards, however, the little birds flock back
and all sing anew. . . Spring

The shepherd boy awakens, alarmed by
the storm and of his fate
He stirs his weary body, frightened of the vicious
lightning and swarms of gnats and flies
Ah, his fears are all too justified for thunder shakes
the heavens and breaks down the wheat. . . Summer

The hunter goes forth at dawn with
trumpets, guns and angry dogs
The game flies and they follow in its tracks
Already exhausted and wounded, and frightened by
the clamour of shotguns and hounds, it tries to
escape the fury but is captured and dies. . . Autumn

Shivering, frozen in the chilling snow and the blasting wind
Running tirelessly with stamping feet and chattering teeth
Resting by the fire in contented peace whilst
outside the torrent of rain continues
Walking on ice, with cautious steps for fear of falling
Running fast until the ice splits and cracks,
A gulf opening. . . Winter

And there you have the original poem that inspired the Four Seasons, as told in the booklet of the Vanessa-Mae CD. Or was it the poem written after the Four Seasons was written, like a playbill so to speak?

Well, from what the Itzhak Perlman CD says, we will never know. As a matter of fact, it would be hard for the non-Four Seasons expert to know that this music had poetic origins in the first place. Out of all the copies of the Four Seasons I own, the Vanessa-Mae CD is the only one that has the poem printed in its entirety. The only other one to have pieces of it is the Perlman CD. Maybe that is what you pay extra for?

But the point is that there is a structure, an inspiration to the Four Seasons beyond the notion that Vivaldi just spit this stuff out of this head. He was inspired. But inspired to write the music based off of the poem, or the poem based off of the music? In the end, it doesn't really matter.

But what does matter is that the music and the words are supposed to be related. At points we are supposed to hear representations of birds chirping, thunder roaring, and rain falling. But frankly, I don't hear it. Trust me, I have tried to on numerous occasions to hear that darn bird, but I don't hear the bird. And in fact, the only sound that I find related to the poem is the final line about the gulf opening. I do hear that, and boy if it isn't one of the best moments in music. But that is just 45 seconds out of 40 minutes of music.

And then a few days after I wrote most of this as I was listening to this CD again, it hit me: I heard a bird.

The music sounded like the bird chirping, and the sounds of nature were identifiable, at least in places. Which says more for this recording than all the others. For they did not have duck calls or real guns going off, but the music clearly said to me, "Hey, I'm a bird". And that is what makes this recording so special to me now. I do not know if Vivaldi originally debuted this music in 1725 with sounds so matching of nature, but I have a feeling it was more nature sounding than most of the recordings out there.

But at the same time, I don't think that this is how the first performance sounded either. And I don't think anybody does. For it is truly a Four Seasons shaken up. It is not my favorite, but like I said, it is nice to stir it up, and it was great to hear the birds singing.

Seraphim brand, Yehudi Menuhin on violin.

Oh dear, help me, for I have become obsessed. Since I have written the majority of this page up, I have decided that I need to investigate this whole Four Seasons more, on the audio level. So what do I do? I buy my fifth copy. I was going to by two copies, but opted to get only one. It was a dual CD with the Four Seasons and a bunch of other Vivaldi works, and it only cost me $6.99 ($3.50 a CD). And I must say that it is money well spent.

Much like the Perlman CD, one of the selling points of this CD is that the late great Yehudi Menuhin is the main violinist. But this CD was a pleasant surprise for me.

Now it is not the dream Four Seasons that I imagine and alluded to earlier, but it is a top-notch recording. It is definitely a chamber orchestra like all the other recordings, but it does not try to fool itself. Yehudi does not show off and neither do any of the other players. Each player does his/her part and does it well. It is a fluid play from a chamber orchestra that does not try to pretend it is something else.

And the other thing that I noticed about it is that it is a little bit slower than the other recordings I own. Still haven't made judgement on that part.