The whole of Europe was gripped by the Vivaldi fever: the works of the then most famous musician on the continent were disseminated among virtuosos and aficionados through publishers in Amsterdam and other major cities. Collections with appealing titles such as «La Stravaganza» and «L’estro Armonico» found a ready market. Young Johann Sebastian Bach was infected by the Vivaldi virus as well. He reworked a minimum of nine Vivaldi string concertos into concertos for keyboard instruments.

The Italian ensemble Armoniosa adapts extravagant and inspiringly harmonious Vivaldi concerti for its chamber music instrumentation and combines them with music by Bach’s son Johann Christoph Friedrich and Northern Italian composers of the generation succeeding Vivaldi, thanks to whom the great Venetian violinist’s musical legacy was taken to a new era and spread to the central European region. Both Carlo Graziani from Asti and Giovanni Benedetto Platti from Padua worked at German courts successfully for many years. «Armoniosa and the music of the 18th century are like returning to our native tongue», the musicians explained in an interview with klassik.com with regard to the ensemble founded by them in 2012 in Graziani’s birthplace Asti and its repertoire.