Australian Baroque’s flair for theatrical, inventive programming is once again on full display in this Sunday matinee.
At the heart of the concert is an unashamedly brash, foot-stomping take on Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni, interspersed with three vocal works drawn from two of the composer’s operas and a pasticcio serenata, as well as a flute concerto from the same set featuring the celebrated Il Gardellino.

Australian Baroque & West Australian Opera (Helen Kruger, centre): Vivaldi’s Seasons. Photo supplied
Before each violin concerto, violist Christian Read delivers evocative readings of the composer’s accompanying sonnets, with the ensemble providing musical excerpts that illuminate Vivaldi’s masterful word-painting. These moments, together with the avian, elemental and amorous imagery of the flute concerto and vocal items, create an all-pervasive pastoral atmosphere. This is, in every sense, four seasons in a single concert.
The four violin concertos are electrifying – risky, imaginative and rhetorically charged.
Autumn: the drunkard’s erratic progress, the hunters’ ebullience and the hunted’s tragic flight. Winter: the elements’ implacable indifference, the music splintering with startlingly realised sonic...
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