Eboracum Baroque | Vivaldi Four Seasons Recording

Aim

Recording Vivaldi's Four Seasons for recorder, cello and harpsichord alongside cantatas by Handel for soprano.

Recording Vivaldi's Four Seasons

We are very excited to record our version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in August 2026. It is one of the most familiar pieces of Baroque music but we're looking forward to presenting it in a new way. This is your chance to support us in making this CD possible - a collective effort to bring a project to fruition. 

Our chamber version of this masterpiece will feature the recorder accompanied by cello and harpsichord. It will offer an exciting new way to hear this wonderful music and features 3 superb musicians. We have been performing this version for nearly 10 years and we feel now is the moment to put it down on record!

Our version of this masterpiece

This piece has been recorded countless times with a huge variety of recordings across the years. We feel our version will offer this wonderful music in a new and engaging way. The recorder is the perfect instrument to capture the pastoral delights of this piece. From the birdsong in Spring and Summer to the the dancing nymphs shepherds and peasants in Spring and Autumn. The recorder also shows off its incredible virtuosity in the thunderstorms in Summer and Winter but also brings a real senses of peace in quieter moments too. 

The recorder is accompanied in our version by a cellist and a harpsichordist bringing a really intimacy to this piece - a chamber version of this great work. 

Vivaldi frequently refashioned concertos for different instruments and ensembles. Within Op. 8, the collection containing The Four Seasons, the ninth and twelfth concertos also survive in oboe versions, while elsewhere he transformed chamber concertos into flute concertos and redistributed solo material between strings and wind instruments. 

Our recorder version follows this characteristically eighteenth-century practice of adapting music to the colour and capabilities of a different solo instrument. This recorder version therefore represents a historically informed reimagining rather than the reconstruction of a documented original performance.

The sonnets that stand alongside this piece are integral to our performance. These alongside Vivaldi's markings in the score play a major part in how we perform this music. The sonnets will be presented in the CD booklet and recorded in a digital format - more news on this soon!

What else is on the CD?

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is around 40 minutes long so we were keen to add further music inspired by nature that would compliment the music of Vivaldi. We have chosen 3 Handel cantatas which will be sung by the brilliant soprano, Isabelle Haile. All three of these pieces were composed by Handel when he was in Rome so connects well to create a full 'Italian' disc. They will appear in between the seasons as a musical offering that connects to the sonnets and music within each season. 

Aure soavi e liete HWV 84 (Soft and Delightful Breezes) 

Diana cacciatrice, HWV 79 (The cantata celebrates the hunt and the mythological goddess Diana) * This piece will also feature Chris Parsons on the Baroque trumpet. 

Minuet and In queste amene from HWV 99 (a beautifully rustic piece with text about flowers blooming, serene shores and sounds of songs) 

*We do not agree with hunting of any kind but when choosing music that linked with the final movement of Autumn we felt this matched the programme very well. It is music of its time and brilliant music by Handel. 

About our musicians

This recording has been long in the pipeline! We had originally begun to plan this recording just before Covid and we are so excited to be returning to it now. The players featuring on this recording have performed this piece together for many years. Miriam Monaghan on the recorder brings incredible virtuoso playing, a real flair and panache to the music. She is accompanied beautifully on the cello by Miriam Nohl who brings great security and attention to detail in her stylish playing. Laurence Lyndon Jones on the harpsichord brings superb ensemble playing and a graceful approach to this great piece. 

The three musicians mentioned above our key members of Eboracum and have performed with the group for many years. It is brilliant to have these musicians at the centre of this CD. If you have been to our concerts over the years, you will have seen and heard first hand their brilliant playing, attention to detail and passion for this music. 

Isabelle Haile has been regularly singing with Eboracum since 2021 and it will be wonderful to celebrate her fantastic voice on this disc. Her knowledge and passion of baroque vocal music is superb and her voice is perfect for the Handel you will hear on this disc. 

Artistic Director of Eboracum Baroque, Chris Parsons will also feature on this disc in Diana cacciatrice, HWV 79. The piece begins with a lively march featuring the trumpet which returns throughout the cantata, duetting with the soprano in an aria too. 

Help us make this a reality!

This is your chance to be part of Eboracum's latest CD - our fourth! We are incredibly grateful for all the support we have received across the years by all our followers. It is always brilliant to see so many faces we recognise at our concerts who have supported us across the years and we have no plans to stop performing live! By supporting this CD you are helping us to put our version down on disc, preserving our performance for centuries to come. It will allow us to record a piece that has been so central to our years of performing. Having you support this disc would mean the world to us and thank you for reading our 'pitch' we are very grateful! 

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 30th August 2026 at 8:45pm