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Artist: I Musici
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Vivaldi - Verdi_Le Quattro Stagioni

I Musici, the ensemble who made the first stereo recording of one of classical music’s best-loved pieces, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, will release their new album on Decca Classics on 18 March. Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) includes a new version of Vivaldi’s iconic work by the group who know it best, paired with a specially-commissioned arrangement of Verdi’s Four Seasons.

The album marks the 70th anniversary of the group’s debut concert in Rome in 1952 and celebrates a staggering recording catalogue: I Musici made over 130 albums for Philips (now owned by Decca Label Group) and their versions of The Four Seasons have sold over 10 million copies. Alongside the new album, this astonishing body of work will be honoured in a new 83-CD box set of the ensemble’s analogue recordings 1955-1980, set for release later in 2022.

It is hard to believe today that a work like Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was ever out of performance. Although gaining immense popularity in his lifetime, following his death in 1741, the Four Seasons along with most of Vivaldi’s music became unknown to performers and survived only in libraries. Incredibly, that remained the case until the early-20th century, when figures from Alfredo Casella and Arturo Toscanini to Ezra Pound re-discovered and championed the music of the Venetian composer.