"Notte Veneziana": VIVALDI: Concerto in D major; MARCELLO: Concerto in D minor; ELIAS PARISH ALVARS: La Mandoline, Grande Fantaisie; ALBINONI/GIAZOTTO: Adagio in G minor; GIOVANNI PESCETTI: Sonata in C minor; FELIX GODEFROIDE: Carnaval de Venise – Xavier de Maistre, harp/ l’arte del mondo/Werner Ehrhardt – Sony

“Notte Veneziana”: VIVALDI: Concerto in D major RV 93, 299, 310; MARCELLO: Concerto in D minor; ELIAS PARISH ALVARS, 1808–1849: La Mandoline, Grande Fantaisie Op. 84; ALBINONI/GIAZOTTO: Adagio in G minor; GIOVANNI PESCETTI: Sonata in C minor; FELIX GODEFROIDE: Carnaval de Venise Op. 184 – Xavier de Maistre, harp/ l’arte del mondo/Werner Ehrhardt – Sony Classics, 59:04 ****:
The harp in the classical music world today, both recorded and on the concert stage, is an unplumbed mystery to most. And yet the instrument deserves better, both for its ancient roots and for the role it has played throughout history in speaking music in the uniquely ethereal, magical way that reduces press releases to poetry, as in Sony claiming that the young French virtuoso Xavier de Maistre, in Vivaldi’s exquisite slow movement in Winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, “plays astonishingly–reproducing snowflakes and splintering icicles.” They could have added how well he addresses music’s darker, more openly alluring side too.
Whether the darkly handsome, thirty-something Maistre, soloist with both the Bavarian Radio and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, is actually “today’s leading virtuoso of the harp,” these recordings show that he has the power to make the most roasted of chestnuts come alive to inspire, illuminate and seduce.
There’s also a wonderful novelty in Elias Parish Alvars’ fantasy about the romantic charms of the mandolin, where Maistre is in his element. After his spaced-out take on Parish Alvars’ already spaced-out music (the English harpist is famous for having been praised by Berlioz), as if angels had been sighted in the distance descending from heaven in a 1940s Hollywood vision, the spirited Vivaldi that follows continues on with the same superb energy. And Maistre’s response to Giazotto’s Albinoni concoction even carrries with it an authentic core of spirituality.
The sound, recorded at the Bayer (think aspirin) Kulturhaus in Leverkusen, where l’arte del mondo was recently named the “house” original instrument ensemble, skillfully treads the boundaries between scintillating detail, warmth and spatial dimensionality while gently capturing the color and nuance of the little band’s 12 expert players.
—Laurence Vittes