Any good new recording of The Four Seasons should always be welcomed. This one by Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra is more than good: it’s outstanding. Listening to these dramatic, historically-informed performances, one is immediately struck by how Vivaldi’s prefatory sonnets and musical sound-painting can become not mere evocations of natural phenomena but starting points for deliberate, and far more exciting, abstractions which find their loci in pure emotion. Especially to be welcomed is Hope’s fluent, abundant decoration of the melodic line, particularly in the slower movements, which is echoed by the marvellously imaginative continuo section’s own elaborations.

Offering a bracing new take on a classic is one thing; providing a new context for it is something else. And that something else may well be what ultimately attracts you. There have been myriad responses from various composers to Vivaldi’s original, such as Kalman Cseki’s Alpha, Apocalypse and Armageddon and Oliver Davis’ settings of Vivaldi’s sonnets, Anno and Anno Epilogue. Here we have something different: a pre-existing or newly-composed work assigned to each month of the year, with accompanying artwork – paintings or drawings – that is beautifully reproduced in the recording’s booklet along with copious notes by Hope.

So the year kicks off with young composer Nils Frahm’s “melancholic” Ambre, which Frahm and Hope thought might work with Caio Fonseca’s muted, abstract Fifth Street. There follow such evocative conjunctions as Rameau’s Danse des Sauvages and Ol’ Fritz’s colourful portrait of Frederick the Great; Max Richter’s Spring from Recomposed and Dirk Dzimirsky’s hyperrealist Drawn Face VI; Chilly Gonzales’ Les doutes d’août and Dénesh Ghyczy’s Wandering Mind; and Bach’s sublime aria Bete aber auch dabei, featuring soprano Anna Lucia Richter. The effect is quite magical, and sends you back to Vivaldi’s original with fresh ears and a grateful soul.