• New Music - The Mandolin Seasons by Jacob Reuven, Omer Meir Wellber and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

    The Mandolin Seasons by Jacob Reuven

    LONDON — Hyperion Records and mandolinist Jacob Reuven have announced a May 6 release for The Mandolin Seasons, Reuven's most ambitious project to date.

    With the supporting cast that includes accordion, harpsichord and eighteen string players from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Reuven's close friend and musical ally Omer Meir Wellber, The Mandolin Seasons explores and sheds new light on the celebrated Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla.

    Reuven and Wellber grew up together in the Israeli desert city of Be'er Sheva — Reuven with Iraqi-Jewish roots, and Omer Meir Wellber coming from a western Jewish community. United since childhood by an irrepressible joie de vivre, they have a shared passion for music and, more specifically, for the instruments of their homeland, learned as schoolboys: mandolin and accordion. They have been making music together ever since.



    Track Listing

    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F minor 'Winter', RV297 I. Allegro Non Molto
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F minor 'Winter', RV297 II. Largo
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F minor 'Winter', RV297 III. Allegro
    • Piazzolla: Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas II. Invierno Porteño
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E Major 'Spring', RV269 I. Allegro
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E Major 'Spring', RV269 II. Largo E Pianissimo Sempre
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E Major 'Spring', RV269 III. Allegro
    • Piazzolla: Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas III. Primavera Porteña
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in G minor 'Summer', RV315 I. Allegro Non Molto
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in G minor 'Summer', RV315 II. Adagio - Presto
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in G minor 'Summer', RV315 III. Presto
    • Piazzolla: Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas IV. Verano Porteño
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F Major 'Autumn', RV293 I. Allegro
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F Major 'Autumn', RV293 II. Adagio Molto
    • Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in F Major 'Autumn', RV293 III. Allegro
    • Piazzolla: Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas I. Otoño Porteño

    About the project, Reuven told us: "To become closer to yourself in an absolute sense, you must be emotionally and mentally immersed, completely dedicate yourself while recognizing how the forces of the world around us move in reflexive cycles, beautiful and painful, uncontrollable by a human but capable of surprising him every year anew, season after season. Just like our seasons in nature, the eight seasons by Vivaldi and Piazzolla are masterpieces built upon artistic archetypes that were seeded in me since babyhood and resonate within me to this very day.

    "My journey of personal search through the Seasons started already in childhood. Even before I ever held a mandolin, my parents bought me a recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. In the 1980s, the record I received was a huge plastic circle; viewed from a certain angle, it hid the entire size of the child who held it.

    "I remember one vivid picture from those days. After a long chess battle with Dad, after which one of us was left without the king, I approached my mother and asked her: 'Now Vivaldi!' And then, in the center of the living room, upon an embroidered carpet, I sat down and as the complex chess moves were melting between my memory lobes, the sounds of perfection from the strings took their place and these were moments of pure joy for that child. This unmediated encounter, when this artistic glory was introduced to the ears of a curious child, remained as a clean memory of pure pleasure from music, coupled with a wish that the pleasure never end.

    "Several years later, already as a conservatory student in a city at the heart of the Israeli desert — Beer Sheva — I knew Piazzolla. I didn't meet him in my music lessons or in sheet music, but in the breaks. Between the lessons at the Accordion department I used to meet two brilliant accordionists, my brother, Ehud Reuven, and my partner in this recording, conductor Omer Meir Wellber. Between the lessons, Omer and Ehud used to amuse themselves with the art of improvisation, simply sitting in the corridor and improvising. And every time they would ultimately get to Piazzola, a composer I did not know at the time, but in each one of these unplanned encounters I would wait for them to 'improvise' him.

    "Since those days I was already taken to infinity and back by music and the mandolin. At this point in time, as I was requested to share with you a personal introduction to the recording we are presenting, this internal dialogue opened again, between childhood scenes, a child charmed with the sounds of Vivaldi’s birds, and an adolescent discovering Piazzolla in the corridors of the music school.

    "The beauty and the element of love, artistically distilled; the sentiments they evoke in me – these are all rare in our world in the twenty-first century. I remain with a lucid hope that following that record, which illuminated and enchanted my childhood, the thousands of megabytes that we’ve sent you here will flow into the ears of another curious child.

    "Enjoy the music."



    Additional Information

    Comments 2 Comments
    1. Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
      Mandolin Cafe -
      Some additional images from Jacob worth sharing here that show him with his Arik Kerman mandolin.

      Attachment 200878

      Attachment 200879

      Attachment 200880
    1. Paul Statman's Avatar
      Paul Statman -
      Excellent!