‘Crossing Borders’ by British Period-Instrument Ensemble La Serenissima Contains Concertos for Diverse Instruments

By Miranda Wilson | From the September/October 2025 issue of Strings

Crossing Borders, the new album by British period-instrument ensemble La Serenissima, meditates on the reciprocal influence and blending of national compositional styles in the late Baroque. With a running time of an hour and twenty minutes, the disc contains concertos for diverse instruments by canonic composers Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi alongside some by the undeservedly lesser-known composers Ignazio Sieber, Francesco Durante, and Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello. 

The impact of Italian music on German composers (and everyone else) in the 18th century is well documented, but as violinist-director Adrian Chandler points out in his liner notes, the influence wasn’t entirely one-way. The Bolognese composer Brescianello, whose Concerto for Two Violins is featured here, spent a large part of his career at the court of Württemberg in Germany, where he absorbed the forms and style features of German, French, and English composers. Brescianello’s work, which was new to me, is a highlight of the album. The first movement of the concerto, whose form involves abrupt switches between fast and slow sections, makes you sit up and listen. The other movements epitomize the cosmopolitan theme of the album, sounding for all the world as if Telemann, Handel, and Vivaldi had somehow gotten together and formed a glorious hybrid.

The other works on the album are concertos for flute, recorder, or both, performed beautifully by Katy Bircher and Tabea Debus. Last on the program is Chandler’s intriguing completion of an abandoned slow movement by Vivaldi. Throughout, La Serenissima plays exquisitely, demonstrating the ensemble’s well-deserved reputation as one of the most interesting present-day early-music groups.