The Red Priest's Snowstorm

It has finally stopped snowing here (Morris, MN) and I expect we received a good 7-10". Being snowed in gave me ample time to listen to some music. After listening to Carmina Burana, I put in Red Priest's recording of Vivaldi's Seasons. After listening to L'Inverno, I felt Vivaldi had perfectly captured the feelings of being stuck in your home with a snowstorm surrounding you.

I had the opportunity to hear Red Priest perform a year or two ago at the local college, the University of Minnesota, Morris. They specialize in early music, rearranging pieces to be played by recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord. The concert was so phenomenal, that afterwards I bought two of their CDs. The name of the group is the nickname given to Vivaldi due to his hair color and occupation.

One of their CDs contains Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and Corelli's Christmas Concerto. With the recorder generally playing the solo violin part, their rendition of The Seasons is quite upbeat and bright. They also take many liberties with their interpretation, such as adding a section at the beginning of the CD that sounds like bird calls in nature (provided by the recorder) before launching into the first movement of The Spring and making the second movement of The Winter sound very different than Vivaldi's score appears. Still, the recording is quite fun to listen to, and the virtuosity of the recorder player is to be marveled at.

The homepage of Red Priest is:
www.redpriest.co.uk

Thanks to the county snow plow that finally went by this afternoon, I am able to go to a trombonist's senior recital at the university tonight. I will post the program and some notes on the performance tomorrow.