CD: Vivaldi II, Kennedy/ Berlin Philharmonic

This one could run and run. Vivaldi composed over 600 concertos (or, if you take Luigi Dallapiccola's line, the same concerto 600 times), so it is easy enough for Nigel Kennedy to follow up his squillion-selling recording of the Four Seasons with another selection of works for one and two violins, as well as a violin sonata and concertos for violin and oboe, and two violins and cellos for good measure.

Kennedy clearly has a good rapport with the members of the Berlin Philharmonic who join him in the solo parts; the playing is technically outstanding. Sometimes it's all a bit hard driven, with the feeling that tempi have been selected to dazzle rather than to make musical points, and purists might find the sound of modern strings hard to take in this repertory nowadays. But a performance like that of the D minor sonata is hard to fault musically, and everything here is genuinely enjoyable.