Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons has long been a staple of the classical music repertoire.

Now Corona Strings and the Corona Baroque Ensemble are teaming it with a more recent musical take on the seasons, Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas, by the 20th century Argentine tango composer Piazzolla.

David Le Page, the soloist for the Piazzolla piece, says: “The Vivaldi is a baroque performance with baroque instruments, and they’re using different soloists for each season.

“The Piazzolla is a full-on, modern strings version of that, so it’s quite an interesting juxtaposition of the two styles.”

Written more than 200 years apart, in different continents, there are nevertheless strong links between the two pieces. Piazzolla’s version originally existed as four separate pieces, penned during the 1960s and ‘70s, which paid homage to Vivaldi in both structure and use of musical quotations.

The link was strengthened in 1999 by Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, who introduced some additional Vivaldi quotations into a new arrangement for solo violin and string orchestra.

“I first played the Piazzolla about eight years ago, and I really feel an affinity with it,” says David. “It’s got some real virtuosic stuff in it, and some very lyrical, jazz solos as well, so I feel really connected with that.”

David is no stranger to Oxfordshire; he plays regularly at the Holywell Music Room in the Oxford Coffee Concerts series and at various venues with the Adderbury Ensemble.

He is also familiar with Corona Strings – not least because his wife, Catherine Leech, is the leader.

“I have worked with a lot of the people in Corona Strings, and I’ve known Janet, the conductor, for quite a long time. I’ve been to a lot of their concerts, so it’s nice to go back and play with them.”

His musical journey started in Guernsey, where he started playing the violin at seven. He went on to the Yehudi Menuhin School when he was 12.

“My sister started playing the cello, and my dad suggested I play the violin. From the start, I had a natural feeling there with the violin.

“There were some other instruments that I tried – I remember trying the flute and not understanding how you get the sound out! With the violin, the sound was there from the beginning.

“Going to the Yehudi Menuhin School enabled me to continue playing. Being surrounded by other kids who were playing really well was a thing I really learned from and that’s the reason I’m doing this now, really. I don’t think I would have been a professional musician now if I hadn’t done that.”

David plays a violin from 1874, which sits rather neatly between the Vivaldi and Piazzolla periods. It was made by Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a prolific violin maker and repairer whose clients included the celebrated Italian violin virtuoso and composer Niccolo Paganini.

“I’ve had the violin for about 25 years, and I really love it,” David says. “It’s grown with me. It is good for baroque and romantic music, but it has a really lovely voice for contemporary music as well.

“So for things like the Piazzolla it works really well.”

* Corona Strings: Four Seasons. St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road, Oxford. Saturday, 7.30pm

Tickets: sje-oxford.org