Fabio Biondi: ‘Vivaldi - Le quattro stagioni’ with Europa Galante

To celebrate Ferragosto, we welcome one of Italy’s most celebrated musical figures to the Forum Fondazione Bertarelli. Fabio Biondi is a Palermo-born violinist and conductor whose career has made him a colossus of the Baroque world. Born in Sicily to a family of music lovers, he played his first concerto with the RAI Symphony Orchestra at just twelve years old, and by sixteen was performing Bach at the Musikverein in Vienna.

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In 1989, he founded Europa Galante, which rapidly became the foremost Italian period ensemble. Their recording of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ became a true international phenomenon — named Disc of the Year in more than five countries and bringing the ensemble to stages from Teatro alla Scala to the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. 

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At the heart of this Ferragosto programme is Vivaldi’s iconic Le quattro stagioni, music that astonishes with its vivid tone-painting: birdsong in spring, storms in summer, rustic dances in autumn, icy winds in winter. Alongside it, the radiant Concerto per la Santissima Assunzione di Maria Vergine reveals the sacred brilliance of Vivaldi’s writing. In Biondi’s hands, this promises to be an encounter with the living soul of Italian music.

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Fabio Biondi conductor

Europa Galante

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Programme:

A. Vivaldi 

Concerto in G Minor, RV 152

Concerto in D Major ‘for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary’, RV 582

Concerto for Two Violins, Cello and Orchestra in D Minor, Op. 3 No.11

INTERVAL

A. Vivaldi Le quattro stagioni