Christophe Coin Announces Third Installment of Vivaldi Cello Concertos in French Label’s Latest Edition Release

Naïve Classiques' Latest Vivaldi Edition Will Feature Coin’s Project to Record All of Vivaldi’s Cello Concertos 

French label Naïve Classiques announced in early October the much-anticipated release of Concerti per violoncello III, the 61st album in its loved (and ambitious) Vivaldi Edition which presents once lost-work of Vivaldi himself that were unearthed at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin. 

The album—recorded by Christophe Coin, an active soloist, chamber musician, research, and conductor—is a part of a longstanding collection to pay homage to Vivaldi, an artist who (until the project began) had been minimalized in music history (anything after his Four Seasons was likely to have been overlooked). This project, however, has gone to great lengths to undo that—with over $3 million invested in the recording project, the Vivaldi Editions have sold over 850,000 CDs and engaged more than 250 talented musical artists in the process. 

This particular recording marks the third installment in Coin’s project to record all of the Vivaldi cello concertos. As of publication, Coin has recorded 20 concertos on the Vivaldi Edition, one of his first, 6 Cello Concertos, received immense praise from music publications around the world. “Coin plays them with virtuosity and an affecting awareness of their lyrical content…It would be difficult to single out any one work among the six for particular praise,” wrote Gramophone. 

Coin return to this recording with attention focused at Vivaldi’s “works that give the cello a concertante role rather than soloist one.” 

“What is remarkable about Vivaldi is that a composition that may seem minor or hackneyed at first sight always offers surprises when you go deeper into it,” Coin said. 

In this recording, like his first two projects, Coin chooses to alternate between the violoncello piccolo and the cello to provide a palette of varied sound colors and to enrich the continuo part by an assortment of contrasting combinations of the harpsichord, theorbo, organ, and even occasionally the mandolin. This strategy was well-received on his first two albums—The Guardian reported that “Coin’s tone quality, helped by gut rather than steel strings” to be “firm and strong yet mysterious and elusive.” 

For Coin, this is, overwhelmingly, a passion project. 

“Vivaldi touches me more with his sincerity and humility than with the spectacular works that made him famous,” Coin said.

“He knows how to break the monotony and repetition for which he is sometimes criticized with very simple means that are enough to move me deeply: a tense dissonance, a well-placed ornament, a well-chosen interval – like those little incidents that spice up our everyday routine.”

Previews of the Concerti per violoncello III are available now.