Piazzolla & Irish Chamber Orchestra & Sweeney - Katherine Hunka (CD)

Piazzolla's La Cuarto Estaciones Porteñas ('The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires') takes us through the seasons: Verano Porteño ('Summer'), alert and enigmatic, blustery Otoño ('Autumn'), the jittery liveliness of Primavera ('Spring') and a gently melancholic Invierno ('Winter'). We hear the pieces arranged for violin and strings by Leonid Desyatnikov, playfully incorporating elements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Schubert composed his Rondo in A, D.438, in 1816, when he was still in his late teens. He never wrote a full-scale violin concerto, so this Mozartian Rondo is one of the closest things we have. Schnittke's Moz-Art a la Haydn combines an unfinished fragment by Mozart with the theatricality of Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony, uniquely conveyed by the Irish Chamber Orchestra using audible movement and effects.