“An exemplary performance was to be expected, but the result far exceeds expectations,” writes reviewer Peter Sommeregger for the online platform “Klassik begeistert”. “Under the baton of Daishin Kashimoto (...) the 15 musicians unfold a soundscape that lends this work – which has been played almost to death – a vitality and depth hitherto scarcely known. They achieve a transparency of sound and a shaping of the individual movements that never ceases to amaze.”
The platform Online Merker calls the album “an event that is unparalleled in the history of recordings of this work”; for reviewer Dr Ingobert Waltenberger, the recording is “the most unsentimentally accomplished and, in terms of sound quality, the most phenomenal ever”.
RBB Radio 3 selected the CD as its Album of the Week.
The recording with Daishin Kashimoto, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s principal concertmaster, was made 300 years after the creation of Vivaldi’s famous concert cycle and 30 years after the founding of the Berliner Barock Solisten by members of the Berliner Philharmoniker. The comprehensive booklet includes, amongst other things, an interview with Daishin Kashimoto and Raimar Orlovsky, as well as an essay by Benjamin Poore on Vivaldi’s work.
This recording brings the ensemble full circle: the very first recording of the Berliner Barock Solisten after their formation was also of The Four Seasons, featuring the soloist and ensemble leader Rainer Kussmaul. The then first concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker was Daishin Kashimoto’s teacher.
A historically informed performance practice using modern instruments – that was the idea when, in 1995, members of the Berlin Philharmonic and leading figures in early music came together to form the Berliner Barock Solisten. The members of the ensemble made a conscious decision to interpret 17th- and 18th-century compositions on modern instruments. In doing so, they developed their own distinctive sound, which has since become their trademark. Reinhard Goebel has been the artistic director since 2018.
The album is available from 1 May 2026 at berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com and as a download from all major digital music retailers.
