They appear - as Sergiu Celibidache did in his student- orchestra performance a year ago in Carnegie Hall - to consider every note, every phrase. Parrott and his players take a very different tack. But the principal expressive mood is a blunt and rigid simulacrum of passion - intensity achieved through patterned regularity, like that of a rock band. For instance, the usually estimable Christopher Hogwood, in his recent ''Four Seasons'' recording, also uses a full continuo and original instruments.
Yet most ''authentic'' performances today seem just as constricted.
There is a good deal of snooty dismissiveness these days from modern- day Baroque performers about the sins of the 1950's, with that decade's penchant for a stiff, metronomic ''sewing machine'' style. That means ample ornamentation, contemplative tempos, a lower pitch than is common today and a lush continuo accompaniment - not just the customary harpischord, but also theorbo, archlute and organ.īut what seemed most fascinating was the expressiveness of the phrasing. This is one of those newfangled ''authentic'' performances, meaning one that purports to let us hear how ''The Four Seasons'' might have sounded to Vivaldi at its first performance.
The recording's superiority suggests a rethinking of the very nature of performance styles in our time, and of Baroque music in general. It's by Andrew Parrott and his Taverner Players, with John Holloway as the violinist, and it's without qualification the best performance of this warhorse of warhorses that this determined listener has ever heard. VIVALDI'S ''Four Seasons'' is the most popular item in the domestic compact-disk catalogue, with nine versions already listed, and now another recording is about to be imported into this country.
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