New recording by Francisco Fullana and Apollo’s Fire – Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (November 2021)

With a recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana and Appollo’s Fire, one of the most renowned baroque orchestras in the U.S., under the direction of Jeanette Sorrell, dedicate themselves to a timeless classic (AVIE, 2021). Especially for the recording and for the occasion of the orchestra’s 30th anniversary, Jeanette Sorrel additionally arranged Vivaldi’s trio sonata La Folia as Concerto Grosso for Fullana, Alan Cho (violin, concertmaster) and the orchestra.

Jeanette Sorrell’s interpretation of the Four Seasons is strongly influenced by her former teacher, the conductor, harpsichordist and organist Gustav Leonhardt. She studied with him in Amsterdam and describes that Leonhardt taught her first and foremost “that the harpsichord should sing, and the music should speak. He taught me how to create an expressive palette of colors and moods. As I stood next to him and listened to him play my pieces, the expressive sound possibilities that I had only half imagined suddenly became crystal clear. I realized that, in order to make something happen in music, you first have to imagine it. And not just halfway. The ideas must be burned and sizzled into your imagination with 100% crystal clarity. Without imagination, there will be no music—because music, especially baroque music, is about ideas.”

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Francisco Fullana, violin
Apollo’s Fire, Baroque orchestra
Jeannette Sorrell
Release Date: October 2021

Spanish-born violinist Francisco Fullana is Apollo’s Fire Artist in Residence this season and will tour with the orchestra to New York’s Carnegie Hall and elsewhere in 2022. He is the winner of four international violin competitions and the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and his lifelong fascination with Baroque music has influenced his two recordings to date: his 2018 debut album Through the Lens of Time (ORCHID CLASSICS) and his 2021 solo album Bach’s Long Shadow (ORCHID CLASSICS), which combines Bach partitas on gut strings with Baroque sounds and juxtaposes solo violin works from the following three centuries. As a soloist, Fullana has performed with international orchestras including the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Spain, the National Orchestra of Argentina, the Teresa Carreño Orchestra of Venezuela, the Munich Radio Orchestra, as well as the Saint Paul and Philadelphia Chamber Orchestras and the Vancouver and Pacific Symphony Orchestras in North America. He has worked with renowned conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Alondra de la Parra, Christoph Poppen, Jeannette Sorrell and Joshua Weilerstein, as well as with great artists such as Midori, Viviane Hagner, Nobuko Imai, Charles Neidich and Mitsuko Uchida. One of his special encounters was the collaboration in 2008 with the now deceased conductor Sir Colin Davis.

In the following video, Francisco Fullana, in conversation with Jeanette Sorrell, explains the role Vivaldi’s works had for him in his childhood and youth:

In October 2021, Fullana performed the Four Seasons with Apollo’s Fire at the Cleveland Museum of Art, please find the Summer in the video below. The concert-only performance begins at minute 2:50:

Grammy Award-winning baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, with founder and director Jeannette Sorrell, is known for period performances and concerts with distinctive programming. In Cleveland, the orchestra’s home, Apollo’s Fire presents regular concert series, such as the Baroque Bistro and Family Concerts. The ensemble tours regularly in the U.S. and Europe, including the BBC Proms and the Festival Paesaggi Musicali Toscanini. North American tours include sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall (2018), the Tanglewood Festival (2015 and 2017), the Ravinia Festival (2017 and 2018), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2013, 2014, and 2015), the Boston Early Music Festival series, and the Library of Congress, as well as concerts at the Aspen Music Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and major venues in Toronto, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

With a total of over 8 million views of its YouTube videos, Apollo’s Fire is one of the most popular baroque orchestras on the global internet. In October 2020, the ensemble also launched a Worldwide Watch-at-Home Series, bringing its subscription concerts into the homes of concertgoers around the world. Apollo’s Fire has released 27 commercial CDs and won a 2019 GRAMMY® Award for the album Songs of Orpheus, featuring tenor Karim Sulayman.