In G minor, “Summer” is the most threatening of the seasons. The final Allegro is a pastoral bagpipe dance in a rustic meter with the lower strings providing the drone. According to the accompanying sonnet, the slow movement describes a goatherd slumbering in the fields listen for the “woof-woof” of his watchful dog in the violas. Its opening movement features enchanting birdsong for the soloist and two other solo violins. “Spring” (E Major) is viewed, along with “Autumn,” as a benign season in which Mother Nature brings unclouded happiness to humankind. Here are a few highlights to listen for in each concerto. Moreover, Vivaldi added verbal cues in the scores so performers would know exactly what they were representing: whether a barking dog in the second movement of “Spring” or a drunkard wobbling through the first movement of “Autumn.”
But scholars believe the Seasons were actually composed a few years earlier, probably around 1720, making them contemporaries of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.Īlthough Vivaldi had written other concertos with colorful titles, the Seasons took descriptive writing several steps farther by graphically illustrating four sonnets, possibly written by Vivaldi himself, which are included in the original printed edition.
Four seasons vivaldi trial#
In 1725, he dedicated a remarkable new publication of 12 concertos, entitled Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione ("The Trial of Harmony and Invention"), to the Count - the first four of these concertos being The Four Seasons. Bach.īy the 1720s, Vivaldi was devoting some of his time to the service of Count Wenzeslaus von Morzin of Bohemia. But in his prime, he was a celebrated violin virtuoso, and his dynamic concertos influenced many other contemporary composers, including J. How Vivaldi would have loved all those royalties! After a long and illustrious career in which he composed some 800 works - including 500 concertos for virtually every instrument extant in his time, as well as operas and church music - he died a pauper in 1741 in Vienna, far from his native Venice. For it was the LP that spread the Seasons' fame throughout the world, making it probably the most recorded classical work of them all. So popular is Vivaldi's The Four Seasons today that it seems incomprehensible that these four delightful concertos should have languished in the musical attic for more than 200 years before re-appearing around 1950, just in time for the invention of the long-playing record. Born in Venice, Italy, Madied in Vienna, Austria, July 28, 1741
0 kommentar(er)
