ARTEK’s first holiday program since the pandemic presents Vivaldi’s blockbuster Four Seasons, featuring ARTEK’s violin leader, Cynthia Freivogel with the ARTEK Baroque Orchestra (Gwendolyn Toth, director). Ms. Freivogel is known on YouTube for her performances of the Four Seasons, garnering over 30 million views. Now, ARTEK is bringing the chance to hear her perform this breathtaking virtuoso violin music live to New York City audiences. In addition to the Four Seasons (Le Quatto Stagioni: La primavera RV 269, L’estate RV 315, L’autunno RV 293, L’inverno, RV 297) the program will also include the Concerto for Strings in C major, RV 114 and the Concerto for violin, violoncello, and organ, RV 554a with soloists Cynthia Freivogel, violin; Loretta O’Sullivan cello; and Gwendolyn Toth, chamber organ.
The Four Seasons are revolutionary for their programmatic depiction of the seasons throughout the year; they depict scenes of thunderstorms, barking dogs, buzzing flies, hunting parties, and frozen landscapes. When the concertos were published in 1725 in Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (The Contest between Harmony and Invention), they were accompanied with sonnets that depict in words the pictures painted by the musical notes. These remarkable pieces were rediscovered in the 1950s and have since remained beloved audience favorites.
Cynthia Freivogel, lauded for her “unrestrained virtuosity” (James Oestreich, The New York Times), is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is the violin leader of ARTEK, co-artistic director and concertmaster of Combattimento, and concertmaster of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado and a frequent soloist and guest director for many other groups world-wide, including Handel and Haydn Society, Concerto Köln, Concerto d’Amsterdam, Trupe Barocca (Brazil), Joshua Rifkin’s Bach Ensemble at the Stockholm and Antwerp Early Music Festivals, Collegium Musicum den Haag, and Voices of Music. In Europe she also plays with Vox Luminis, Holland Baroque Society, and Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; while living in California, she was a tenured member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Tickets:
$15, $25, $50. All seats reserved.
Tickets are available in advance from Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS): www.gemsny.org/events/artek
