Antonio Vivaldi's Opus Four consists of a collection of a dozen concertos for violin, string orchestra, and basso continuo. Owing to some unusual and sometimes daring melodic and harmonic twists it carries the title La Stravaganza (The Extravaganza). The solo music includes a lot of melodic cantabile flights and also a lot of figural passagework that often rises to a virtuosic level. This concerto is earnest in tone from start to finish. The ensemble begins its opening Allegro with a no-nonsense theme that prominently features octave skips, and the soloist enters with an equal measure of resolute focus which it carries through the unpredictable turns of some passagework that features some intriguing repetition of ideas. The continuo accompanies the soloist in the first four of its five solo outings—the tutti interrupts the first of these passages, and a violinist from the ensemble joins the official soloist in the second. The solo statements in the fifth outing are unaccompanied and the ensemble answers them unisonally. The Grave that follows is a cantilena which the soloist begins almost immediately over light accompaniment from the ensemble's violins and violas. The movement's contemplative disposition and sometimes painful realizations inform much of its harmony. The concluding Allegro also begins in a serious mood, and the sections of the ensemble explore figural exchanges among themselves. The continuo alone accompanies all four solo episodes. The soloist extends the tutti's mood in the first episode, brightens it in the second, and regains the opening earnestness (that persists to the end) in the third and fourth. One of the ensemble's violinists joins the official soloist in the spotlight midway through the first solo outing.

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