So good to be back in London on Friday night! No torn tendons, no fire alarms... just an evening of glorious Vivaldi, Telemann, Corbett & Ariosti 🥰 If you heard some of those pieces for the first time, we'd love to know what you thought. LOTS of love for the Telemann at the end of the concert ❤️

"Violin Concerto "Alla Rustica" in G RV 151" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler / @avierecords.bsky.social sp. 2371

What a grand entrance… this is the Entrée 👀✨ Except it’s… not actually the entrance 😉 This is the second movement of Ouverture-Suite for strings & continuo in A, TWV 55:a5, by Georg Philipp Telemann. It genuinely feels like a red-carpet moment. Violins first, of course 🎻✨

"Per echo in lontano" - echo in the distance Vivaldi's instruction is clear. How to actually DO it? Less clear. Offstage musicians. Fast passages. Staccato in the slow movement. No eye contact. Adrian explains why this concerto is brilliant... and slightly terrifying!

"Concerto for 2 Oboes in a RV 536" by Antonio Vivaldi / @laserenissimauk.bsky.social, conducted by Adrian Chandler, soloist Rachel Chaplin, oboe; Mark Baigent, oboe / @avierecords.bsky.social sp. 2392

Some never-before-recorded Telemann?! 🤯 If this Rondeau from his Ouverture-Suite for strings & continuo in A, TWV 55:a5, doesn’t get you up & dancing… then maybe the rest of the suite will 😉 We’ll be performing this (& more music you probably haven’t heard live before) at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Ever wondered why we call them the "Bohemian Concertos"? The answer involves mysterious travel, a father-son road trip, and paper forensics. Adrian explains... Catch the Bohemian Concertos live: 6th February at St Martin-in-the-Fields and 25th February at Keble Early Music Festival.

No, your ears aren’t playing tricks on you. Adrian plays a phrase, then a second soloist (the brilliant Oliver Cave 🙌) repeats it from offstage, creating an “echo” effect you can actually locate in the room.

We can neither confirm nor deny that Antonio Vivaldi was operating under deep cover during his 1729 Bohemian tour. What we CAN confirm: All evidence will be presented live in: Liverpool, 24 January, 6pm Liverpool London, 6 February, 7:30pm London Oxford, 25 February 7:30pm Oxford

Attilio Ariosti: Diplomat. Virtuoso. Composer. French spy in London? William Corbett: Composer. Traveler. Owner of suspiciously expensive violins. British agent tracking the Stuarts in Italy? Hear their music live in Liverpool: 24 January, 6-8pm Tickets: @thetungauditorium.bsky.social

Liverpool, your weekend soundtrack is sorting itself out 🎻🕵️ Next Friday night is The Traitors final, with its deliciously string-led classical soundtrack, including our main man Vivaldi. If that music has hooked you, come and hear it live, up close, and properly exhilarating.

What do baroque composers and international spies have in common? Join us in Liverpool, to hear it for the by Attilio Ariosti and William Corbett - two composers whose European travels may have enabled them to work undercover as spies. Sat 24 Jan @TheTungAuditorium 6pm

Tonight’s task is simple. 
Soon, a new composer will be joining our ranks. You’ve seen the evidence.
You’ve followed the trail.
You’ve clocked the theatre ticket. Now, look me in the eye and tell me your suspect.
 Faithful or Traitor? Leave your guess below. Choose wisely.

Shopping done and put away, off to Orient this afternoon for the inevitable defeat, and to Oto again to see Evan Parker, Alex von Schlippenbach, John Edwards, and Paal Nilssen-Love. Pretty marvellous last night. But NP...recorders, violins, bassoons, and strings from @laserenissimauk.bsky.social

If you’re here with us in the UK and bracing for a chilly rest of the week… same 🥶 To match the music, Vivaldi actually published a sonnet alongside Winter from The Four Seasons. It’s basically a tiny scene-by-scene guide to what you’re hearing. Two of these images are in the text, & one is not.

If you’re scrolling social media to distract yourself from Monday, here’s something better. A little Telemann from the harpsichord 😍 In our second instalment of Crossing Borders, we explore how musical styles travelled across 18th-century Europe, from Vivaldi’s virtuosic concertos to Telemann’s..

Buon Anno a tutti from all of us at La Serenissima 🍾 2025 is not a year we’ll forget in a hurry, for a few reasons 😆 Thank you for being with us through it, in the hall, on the radio, and in your headphones. We’ve got a lot to look forward to in 2026, and we hope to see you at a concert…

International Cello Day, featuring our wonderful cellists during our latest recording session: Vladimir Waltham and Carina Drury 📸 Right, important question of the day. What is the best Baroque cello piece of all time?

Buon Natale a tutti! Something about Baroque music and Christmas just fits; Vivaldi and Corelli both wrote fabulous Christmas Concerto. And Bach’s cantatas have obviously stood the test of time. These composers understood the season: darkness and light, stillness and joy, all woven together.

Every violinist knows you start with that Vivaldi. The A Minor. First movement only. But what happens when you fall in love with Vivaldi and go searching for more as a kid in Merseyside? Let me tell you how a library hunt turned into a lifelong relationship with a concerto. Vivaldi Op8 No7.

On 14 Dec 1725, Vivaldi’s Op. 8 was announced in Amsterdam. Which means it’s just turned 300! We’ve marked the occasion the La Serenissima way: by diving into the full set, from start to finish. It also happens to be our 30th anniversary, so the timing felt right 😏 youtu.be/kVQY19EB0L4?...

International Violin Day felt like a good excuse to introduce you properly to Adrian’s violin 🎻 Made by British luthier Rowland Ross in 1981, this violin is built after a historical Amati violin. The Amati family are violin royalty, up there with names like Stradivari and Guarneri 👑

Feeling a bit stuck for this year’s Secret Santa? Or still hunting for the big gift for your favourite Vivaldi fan? We’ve got you covered 🙌 Here’s our ultimate Vivaldi Gift Guide, and it’s not all La Serenissima CDs (although that is always an option…).

There’s still time to enter Ade’s “Baroque Style”, sorry, Baroque Stile, competition. To be in with a chance of winning our complete recording of Vivaldi’s Opus 8, just head to subscribepage.io/Opus8StileComp and tell us which of these stiles you think tripped Adrian up and tore two tendons...

Friday night dinner with this Birthday Boy 🥳 Happy Birthday Adrian! Here's to another year of fabulous Italian baroque music, and great food to go with it 😋🥂

Alright then… who’s going to own up? According to @spotify, there are 10 of you out there who listened to us more than you listened to anyone else this year 🥰

COMPETITION TIME! Win BOTH volumes of our Vivaldi Opus 8. 'Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione' recordings! But first, a confession: I recently had a rather ungraceful encounter with a stile in the Brecon Beacons that left me with two severed shoulder tendons.

Brescianello, on an Apple “Best of 2025” playlist? Didn’t have that on our bingo card 🤯 We love that Brescianello is finally playing with the Baroque big boys 😏

Gloucester is starting to feel like home 🥰 Last weekend we were in a packed Gloucester Cathedral for Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers. This weekend we are back for Handel’s Messiah with Gloucester Choral Society.

Want to know where Vivaldi’s Op. 8 No. 7 comes from? 🤔 Here’s Adrian with a quick intro 😀 The 1st movement survives in Vivaldi’s own hand in Dresden, inscribed to Pisendel (Vivaldi’s star student & later concertmaster). The rest of the concerto survives only in the 1725 Amsterdam engraved edition.

A huge thank you to everyone who has listened to our new album, 8+, this week! We made it into the charts at no. 17 🥳 If you haven't heard it yet.... it's available on all major streaming platforms; or to buy here: https://lnk.to/Vivaldi8Vol2

If Vivaldi writes you a concerto, you must be pretty great 💅 Bearing an inscription to Johann Georg Pisendel, Vivaldi’s Op. 8 No. 7 (RV 242) opens the 2nd half of the Op. 8 set. Pisendel was Vivaldi’s star student & later concertmaster in Dresden, where the 1st movement survives in manuscript.

What was Venice listening to before Vivaldi came along? Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, published in Venice, belongs to the same soundworld that shaped the composers you usually hear from us. Rich choruses, echo effects and vivid solo writing show the city right on the edge of the Baroque.

If Vivaldi’s greatest hits is the poster on your wall, 8+ is the album you’ve been missing 🫶 Out today, the second half of Vivaldi’s Op. 8 brings you music from the 1725 Amsterdam publication that isn’t The Four Seasons.

Hang on… something doesn’t look quite right here… 🤔 Adrian seems to be playing an awful lot of notes, but Vivaldi’s page shows long ones. 💡 It’s shorthand!

Gosh, it’s been a busy few weeks performing & recording with Raffaele la Ragione. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us. If you didn’t, the recording is in the bag for a future release 💪 We thought we’d have a quiet one this week… well, almost. Just the new album out on Friday 14 November...

In the middle of Vivaldi’s third movement, someone else’s third movement makes an appearance… In the finale of RV 332 (Op. 8 No. 8, G minor) Vivaldi gives a sly nod to Johann Paul von Westhoff and his Imitatione delle campane (“Imitation of bells”). By “sly nod” we mean he lifts about eleven bars…

One of the best parts of our concerts (sorry, Ade!) is chatting to our wonderful audience 🥰 As the person often at the CD table, the question I get most is: “Have you got this on CD?” For those of you who came to our recent concerts with @RaffaelelaRagione and asked when we’d be recording…

Can you hear the bells? 🔔 Vivaldi loved recycling his own ideas and dressing them up in new concertos, but this time he does something different. In the finale of RV 332 (Op. 8 No. 8, G minor) he nods to Johann Paul von Westhoff’s Imitatione delle campane (“Imitation of bells”)…

Mid-chase, the violin solo takes off as if it’s the deer itself, fleeing the rest of the band… 😆 This snippet from Vivaldi’s “La caccia” (Op. 8 No. 10, RV 362: I. Allegro) overlays Vivaldi’s own manuscript from Turin, so you can see how many notes he squeezes into such a small space 🎻

Ever wondered what a Baroque hunt sounds like? 🤔 Vivaldi’s La caccia (“The Hunt”) from Op. 8 is full of musical secrets: horn calls, “barking” dogs, fleeing deer, and even the moment the wounded beast falls. What’s fascinating? Among concertos 7–12, titles are rare — La caccia stands out.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us in London and Liverpool this week ❤️ It was wonderful to meet so many of you and hear how much you enjoyed the music — and a bonus that Ade was able to play too 😉

We had a great time playing at St Martin-In-The-Fields last night! Thanks to all who joined us ❤️ And isn’t it lovely to see Ade with a violin again? He’s still recovering from his shoulder injury, but last night he was able to play in public for the first time since July 🥳🎉

Here's Ade with bit of background to Vivaldi's Solo Mandolin Concerto, speaking at our recent concert at @turnersims.bsky.social, Southampton. We're really looking forward to reuniting with Raffaele La Ragione for more mandolin music very soon ⬇️

When you think of “the hunt”, what comes to mind? Horns? Guns? Dogs? The drumming of horses’ hooves? A deer fleeing? 🦌 You should hear all of these in our new single, out today: Vivaldi's “La caccia”, Op. 8, No. 10, RV 362: I. Allegro.

Look at that tidy print 😍 This comes from the 1st printed edition of Vivaldi’s Op. 8, published in Amsterdam, 1725 by Michel-Charles Le Cène as part of Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione (“The Contest between Harmony & Invention”). This is the third movement of the eleventh concerto and...

One concerto; two quite different versions. Adrian is back to talk about Vivaldi’s love of recycling: not only reusing great melodies in different works, but sometimes replacing huge chunks of a piece with new ideas.

Enjoying the first single from our upcoming 8+? Or were you one of the lucky ones who picked up a copy at the weekend & enjoying the whole thing? 😉 Here’s Ade to talk about his favourite concerto from Op. 8 - No. 11. It is actually much harder than The Four Seasons… but let’s keep that between us.

If you missed our concerts at the weekend… this is what you missed 😍 The beautiful 2nd movement from Bigaglia’s Concerto for Mandolin. It’s really for oboe, but there isn’t much surviving mandolin rep so we’ve pinched it and the mandolin sounds lush. ❤️

Look who’s back in town! 🥳 We’re in rehearsal today ahead of our first autumn concert with Raffaele la Ragione (no mandolin emoji… an oversight, surely 🤔). If you haven’t got tickets for @turnersims.bsky.social, Southampton, we’d love to see you tomorrow, Saturday 4 October at 7.30pm.