Barbara Tan wrote:

>Looking for it, raises some wider questions.  Of the many modern
>recordings, are there recommendations from the group for Vivaldi's Four
>Seasons, either on modern or period instrumentation?

(pace Deryk Barker and his well-known dislike of this work's overplayed
status)

While I've never even tried an exhaustive survey of the available
recordings, my current favorite on period instruments is that by Giardino
Armonico, on Teldec.  Very colorful, take-no-prisoners playing.  The
opening of the Winter concerto sounds more like Ligeti or Penderecki to me!

On modern instruments, my favorite remains the 1960s I Musici, on Philips.
More mellow playing than their younger fellow Italian counterparts I
mention above, but still very beautiful.

>What do you think is behind the trend of artists leaving their instruments
>and going into conducting, often without the acclaim of their years as
>soloists?

I can't comment on this question.  However, one other observation--in the
two recordings I've mentioned, there is NONE of the violin soloist hype
that one sees on the covers of other renditions--where the orchestra is
almost an afterthought, it seems.

Bill H.