The Hungarian violinist Béla Báinfalvi was born in Budapest in 1954 and on completing his studies at the Liszt Academy joined the teaching staff. He spent three years, from 1979, as leader of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and was invited in 1982 to join the Bartók String Quartet. In 1985 he left the quartet in order to lead the Budapest Strings, a chamber orchestra with which he has made a number of tours. As a soloist, chamber music player and leader of a chamber orchestra, he has given over seven hundred concerts, appearing throughout Europe, in Japan and in America, with a number of recordings for various companies. He teaches at the Budapest Academy and in 1985 was awarded the Bartók-Pásztory Prize.

The Budapest Strings chamber orchestra was established in 1977 by former students of the Budapest Liszt Academy of Music under the direction of the distinguished cellist Károly Botvay, who made his earlier career with the Bartók Quartet. The leader of the orchestra is Béla Bánfalvi, leader of the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra from 1979 and a member of the Bartók Quartet from 1982. The Budapest Strings is among the best of such ensembles in Hungary and has performed at home and abroad with considerable success with a wide-ranging repertoire that includes music written for the orchestra by younger Hungarian composers.

The cellist Károly Botvay studied at the Budapest Academy, where his teachers included Zoltán Kodály. Among prizes he won were a first prize diploma from the Hungarian Arts Council, a first prize in the Bartók Competition and in the Hungarian Bach Competition. In 1960 he joined the Komlós Quartet, which later acquired an international reputation as the Bartók Quartet, touring with the ensemble for seventeen years and also pursuing a solo career as a soloist in Hungary and in Eastern Europe. Since his first concert tour of England in 1978 he has established a reputation there as a soloist. In the same year he became cellist of the Aldeburgh String Trio and in 1979 joined the Végh Quartet, with which he has appeared throughout Europe. In 1985 he joined the New Budapest String Quartet. He has recorded for Hungaroton, Erato and Naxos and is a member of the teaching staff of the Liszt Academy.

The Italian composer and violinist Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678 and after his ordination in 1703 embarked on an intermittent career in the service of the Ospedale della Pietà, an institution for the education of orphan, illegitimate or indigent girls. It was an establishment with a formidable musical reputation. His later career brought involvement in opera. As a composer Vivaldi was prolific, with some 500 concertos to his credit in addition to a quantity of works for the church and for the theatre. He left Venice in 1741 in the apparent hope of finding new patrons in Vienna, but he died shortly after his arrival in the city.

Church Music

The surviving church music of Vivaldi includes the well-known Gloria, in addition to a number of settings of psalms and motets.

Operas

None of the 50 or so operas of Vivaldi remain in standard repertoire, although some are now once again making their appearance.

Concertos

The most famous of all Vivaldi’s concertos are those of Le quattro stagioni (‘The Four Seasons’), characteristic compositions to which the composer attached explanatory programmatic sonnets. These four concertos, for solo violin, string orchestra and harpsichord, form part of the collection Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione (‘The Contest of Harmony and Invention’), one of seven collections of such compositions published in the composer’s lifetime. In addition to concertos for solo violin, Vivaldi also wrote concertos for many other solo instruments, including the flute, oboe, bassoon, cello and viola d’amore, and for groups of solo instruments.

Chamber Music

Vivaldi wrote a number of sonatas and trio sonatas, many of them designed for one or two violins and basso continuo. He also wrote a series of chamber concertos, compositions similar in approach to the solo and multiple concertos but scored for smaller groups of instruments.