At 13 years old, Australian violinist Christian Li is the youngest ever violinist to record Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. This recording is not his first ‘youngest ever’ by any means – at 12 Li became the youngest artist to sign to the Decca label and in 2018 he became the youngest ever winner of the Junior First Prize at the Menuhin Competition at 10. Since then he’s been notching up concerto performances with Australia’s orchestras, including Vivaldi’s Spring with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in March this year.

Christian Li

He gives an impressive account of The Four Seasons here with the MSO as soloist and director, bringing plenty of fire and personality to the music. 

Spring gives us a violinist more than equal to the work’s technical demands, Li dispatching the wild runs with panache. The slow movement of Summer is languid – a more drawn-out, romantic reading than Rachel Podger’s brilliantly sun-baked account with Brecon Baroque – before the slashing storm of the...