For this new recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Jordi Savall conducts an all-female orchestra, as Vivaldi did in his time at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice.

The soloist Alfia Bakieva is a violinist of Tatar origin currently living in Salzburg, Austria. She is a multi-instrumentalist, particularly in the field of folk music, playing violin, folk fiddle, kylkobiz, ghizzhak and similar instruments. She studied Baroque violin with Enrico Onofri (Palermo Conservatory) and Hiro Kurosaki (Mozarteum University), focusing on historically informed performance practices in the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic repertoires. Such a profile made her the ideal candidate for a collaboration with Jordi Savall. She plays a Francesco Ruggeri violin, built in 1680 in Cremona, Italy.

This double-album sold at the price of a single new release offers the recording of the Four Seasons with and without the sonnets written by Vivaldi and four others concerti by Vivaldi.

The version with read text sheds a particularly revealing light on Vivaldi’s work.