This 1992 recording by American guitarist Eliot Fisk is among the fine series of releases by the MusicMasters label. It falls into the category of strong and definitely crowd-pleasing recordings that potential buyers should nevertheless sample well; it's not to everyone's taste. Playing Vivaldi on the guitar (he wrote no music for the instrument) is not an issue; it's been done many times before, and as Fisk puts it in the interview-format booklet (in English only), "A Baroque performer had so many plucked instruments to choose from." His transcriptions from lute or mandolin to guitar are pretty straightforward, and he's a technically superb player. He outlines some of the procedures he uses in the booklet; one is adding bass lines, which gives a lovely shadowy quality to the famous middle movement of the Concerto for lute and orchestra in D major, RV 93 (track 8). Some of the performances, however, go a bit beyond simple adaptation. Fisk's phrasing is novel, and he adds a lot of flourishes that even 20 years after the fact and after Vivaldi performances by the likes of violinist Janine Jansen, make him a daring Vivaldi performer. Hear the vaguely jazz-like phrasing in the first movement of the Sonata in G minor, RV 42. None of it goes off the rails, none of it is unmusical, and much of it (especially perhaps the Concerto in D minor for viola d'amore and lute, RV 540) is beautiful. Just be aware that this is Vivaldi with a lot of performer personality. The original 1992 sound has held up quite well. --James Manheim, AllMusic Guide