Vivaldi: Four Seasons
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:18 pm
Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many threads which you all will enjoy and hopefully learn something from.
So, here we are to discuss Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and, by way of “breaking the ice” so to speak I want to start off with a little introduction.
The Four Seasons must be one of the most instantly recognised Classical Music works out there and, along with Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, must be the ultimate in elevator music or phone holding music! The Four Seasons is a works that seems to polarise opinions in that some people love it while others hate it. It may well be the case that gross over exposure of the work has killed off a lot of people’s appreciation of the work. Most people will therefore have an opinion of one sort or another on this choice of music.
Let us start by saying that it is a work that everyone knows; or is it? How many people can hear the barking of the dog or the winter snow storms or the stumbling drunkard or the plip-plop of the raindrops? Programme music (descriptive music) it may well be but there are many hidden gems in this work that are not always obvious....there are many and varied pictures that are painted just waiting to be discovered!
Do you know that the Four Seasons was not written as a standalone work but rather is part of a bigger work altogether? The Four Seasons are part of a set of twelve concertos published under the title of “Il cimento dell’armonica e dell’inventione, Op. 8”; the title suggesting a trial of strength between harmony and invention. I do not know which element comes out on top; both elements are very well represented. Ultimately, however, I think that the music is the overall winner which is as it should be.
The four individual concertos (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter obviously) that go to make up the Four Seasons follow the Classical three movement plan of quick, slow, quick i.e. two quick tempo movements at the beginning and the end and a slow movement in the middle of the work. A Concerto, as we all know, is a work where a soloist performs in front of an orchestra and in this case the soloist is a violinist. Incidentally, if you are coming to this music for the first time or you are at an early stage in your Classical Music appreciation development, Vivaldi wrote lots of very tuneful and very accessible concertos for varied solo and mixed groups of instruments. The reason that I mention this is that when I was a young lad starting off listening to this music it was a really great way to appreciate the sound of different individual instruments as the music itself, while being very pleasant, never gets in the way so you have a chance to really listen to the solo instrument that Vivaldi was writing for at that time.
Simplicity and repetition of themes along with the driving thrust of the fast movements and the gorgeous slow movements are, for me, some of the attractions of Vivaldi’s music. Vivaldi himself was a great violinist and therefore pushed virtuosity more than his predecessors. The great JS Bach was also a very big fan of Vivaldi, composing harpsichord and organ transcriptions of some of his music.
There are very many and varied recordings of this work and hopefully we will discuss lots of them during February but before we start does anybody have any information or personal associations with the music that they would like to share with us? Indeed, does anybody have any question about the work in general that they would like to ask? Remember that the most stupid question is the one that you did not ask!!!
So, here we are to discuss Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and, by way of “breaking the ice” so to speak I want to start off with a little introduction.
The Four Seasons must be one of the most instantly recognised Classical Music works out there and, along with Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, must be the ultimate in elevator music or phone holding music! The Four Seasons is a works that seems to polarise opinions in that some people love it while others hate it. It may well be the case that gross over exposure of the work has killed off a lot of people’s appreciation of the work. Most people will therefore have an opinion of one sort or another on this choice of music.
Let us start by saying that it is a work that everyone knows; or is it? How many people can hear the barking of the dog or the winter snow storms or the stumbling drunkard or the plip-plop of the raindrops? Programme music (descriptive music) it may well be but there are many hidden gems in this work that are not always obvious....there are many and varied pictures that are painted just waiting to be discovered!
Do you know that the Four Seasons was not written as a standalone work but rather is part of a bigger work altogether? The Four Seasons are part of a set of twelve concertos published under the title of “Il cimento dell’armonica e dell’inventione, Op. 8”; the title suggesting a trial of strength between harmony and invention. I do not know which element comes out on top; both elements are very well represented. Ultimately, however, I think that the music is the overall winner which is as it should be.
The four individual concertos (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter obviously) that go to make up the Four Seasons follow the Classical three movement plan of quick, slow, quick i.e. two quick tempo movements at the beginning and the end and a slow movement in the middle of the work. A Concerto, as we all know, is a work where a soloist performs in front of an orchestra and in this case the soloist is a violinist. Incidentally, if you are coming to this music for the first time or you are at an early stage in your Classical Music appreciation development, Vivaldi wrote lots of very tuneful and very accessible concertos for varied solo and mixed groups of instruments. The reason that I mention this is that when I was a young lad starting off listening to this music it was a really great way to appreciate the sound of different individual instruments as the music itself, while being very pleasant, never gets in the way so you have a chance to really listen to the solo instrument that Vivaldi was writing for at that time.
Simplicity and repetition of themes along with the driving thrust of the fast movements and the gorgeous slow movements are, for me, some of the attractions of Vivaldi’s music. Vivaldi himself was a great violinist and therefore pushed virtuosity more than his predecessors. The great JS Bach was also a very big fan of Vivaldi, composing harpsichord and organ transcriptions of some of his music.
There are very many and varied recordings of this work and hopefully we will discuss lots of them during February but before we start does anybody have any information or personal associations with the music that they would like to share with us? Indeed, does anybody have any question about the work in general that they would like to ask? Remember that the most stupid question is the one that you did not ask!!!
