Lie down, close your eyes - and listen to this superb realization of the sumptuous slow movement from Vivaldi's the Four Seasons, in the version I bought with pocket money as a teenager.
The performer of the harpsichord "improvisation" is unlisted, but was probably Leslie Pearson; the Orchestra is the Virtuosi of England conducted by Arthur Davison.
The Virtuosi of England was a "scratch orchestra" organized for recording on the legendary (to me!) Classics for Pleasure label (whose recordings constituted about 90% of my schooldays record collection); composed of some of the excellent soloists moonlighting from the major London Orchestras of the day.
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The first classical LP I bought was their version of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos on the Classics for Pleasure label. A few years later I replaced it with one made by players from the Berlin Philharmonic on Deutsche Gramophone which I assumed would be better. It wasn't nearly as good. The Virtuosi of England made the music dance while the BPO players made it plod.
"The first classical LP I bought was their version of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos on the Classics for Pleasure label."
That was also one of my early purchases - still going strong! They were quite a band - e.g David Munrow played recorder on 2nd and 4th concertos - best player of the era.
I didn't realise David Munrow played with them. His Music for the Gothic Era was the first CD I bought!
@William - Munrow was pretty influential on me as a teen - I listened to his Pied Piper programme on Radio Three most days, and borrowed all his recordings I could find in the Bristol Record Library (which was quite a lot!). I was very surprised when he died so young, because at the time nobody (nobody I knew, anyway) mentioned it was suicide. Which is, itself, hard to comprehend given his cheery and energetic public persona.
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