In December 1987 Gramophone’s Edward Greenfield warmly reviewed Michala Petri’s landmark recorder version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, at the same time making reference to James Galway’s flute version a decade earlier. So newsworthy was her recording that Petri also made the cover and was interviewed by Stephen Johnson that month. Then Marion Verbruggen arranged the concertos for five recorders and recorded them with the Flanders Recorder Quartet (2002); Dan Laurin performing with Arte dei Suonatori (2006) and Piers Adams with Red Priest (2009) produced subsequent recorder versions.

Enter Erik Bosgraaf – a musicologist recorder soloist – with a fresh take on this iconic quartet of concertos. Playing instruments of extraordinary beauty made for him by Ernst Meyer, Bosgraaf has assembled his personal corps of ripieno (two) and continuo players (four), Ensemble Cordevento, to record a carefully researched and arrestingly translucent chamber interpretation. In common with Petri and many other artists, he claims to have been influenced by the anonymous sonnets that appeared in the 1725 Amsterdam edition and are included here in the CD booklet.

That these concertos suit the recorder very well is not in doubt. Listening to Bosgraaf’s magical version of the ‘Danza pastorale’ of Spring or the birdcalls in the first movement of Summer, one can easily argue that the recorder is better able to imitate the sounds of nature than a violin. By using minimal forces for accompaniment he achieves ethereal textures, as in the Adagio of Autumn and the Largo of Winter; my only quibble might be with the unnecessarily intrusive continuo-playing in the Largo of Spring. Elsewhere, the rapport between solo and ripieno forces is simply fabulous.