David Dalle
Thursday October 22nd, 2020 with David Dalle
What's next Vivaldi? Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Lubomyr Melnyk. V.G. Jog, Zakir Hussain. Piano. Violin.

We begin today with a truly wonderful new album from one of the boldest working classical musicians today, Patricia Kopatchinskaja. I cannot praise her approach to performance and programming enough. She has performed and released several "conceptual" projects which have broken apart and/or reinterpreted major masterworks such as Schubert's Death & the Maiden Quartet and mixed in contemporary works which expand the meaning of the older masterpiece. Her latest recording fits into this radical mold. "What's Next Vivaldi?" contrasts five concertos by Vivaldi with works by living Italian composers, with the idea that the contemporary works link to, and expand, the interpretation of the Vivaldi. Even without this bold programming, her performance of the Vivaldi alone is unique and thrilling showing a brilliant, instinctive, non-academic, approach to this music. For example, in her performance of Vivaldi's violin concerto in D 'Il Grosso Mogul', she takes 17th century Vienna's commercial contacts with the Moghul Empire in South Asia and its distant reference by Vivaldi to introduce a more Indian style of violin playing in her interpretation (Kopatchinskaja has improvised with Hindustani musicians before). This is an idea and an approach to Vivaldi that has never occurred to any other classical violinist! There are some conservative critics who cannot accept her interpretive freedom, but I believe Kopatchinskaja is the future of classical music. She has found sympathetic collaborators with the famed Italian period instrument ensemble Il Giardino Armonico.