The Four Seasons for Violin and Orchestra
Antonio Vivaldi
Born: April 3, 1678, Venice, Italy
Died: July 28, 1748, Vienna, Austria
Years Composed: 1718–1723
Length: c. 35 minutes
World Premiere: 1725, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Last ISO Performance: August 2012 with conductor and soloist Barnabás Kelemen
Instrumentation: basso continuo, strings, solo violin
Antonio Vivaldi was not the only writer of concerti in 18th-century Italy, but he was certainly the most prolific. This is largely due to his post at the Ospedale della Pietà. Vivaldi produced an astounding amount of concerti—over 500, with nearly half of them written for the violin—during his thirty year tenure at the Pietà.
The Ospedale della Pietà was a Venetian hospice established by nuns, likely in the 14th century, with the aim of caring for the orphaned and abandoned girls of Northern Italy. Centuries later, the Pietà was renowned for its all-girls school which included musical ensembles and budding virtuosi. Antonio Vivaldi became the maestro di violino at the school in 1703, assigned to teach violin lessons to the young ladies, and was eventually promoted—after a kerfuffle with the Board in 1711—to a post teaching general music as well as coaching ensembles and composing. In 1716, Vivaldi’s title was maestro de’ concerti, and he was regarded as the Ospedale della Pietà’s chief musician. Vivaldi’s reputation spread far and wide, eventually attracting students directly to the Pietà, hoping to study with the master. For three decades, Vivaldi (an exceptional violinist in his own right) used his position not only to advance his students’ talents, but to write new works that would challenge their progress and showcase their musicianship. Part of Vivaldi’s staggering musical output was due to stipulations of his contract: the Pietà required him to compose two concerti per month.
Vivaldi’s position composing for his students led to the genesis of his best known works, The Four Seasons. This set of four concerti was written between 1718 and 1723 in Mantua, Italy. The premiere history is murky—Seasons was not one of the many concerti written for his Pietà students—but we know the score was first published in 1725. Vivaldi elected to publish the score with accompanying text, which was unusual for his own oeuvre as well as the period. Each of the seasons is represented as its own concerto whose melodic themes are guided by the original sonnets. Those, too, were likely written by Vivaldi.
The resulting concerti are programmatic to the core. The term “program music” would not be coined for another century (that designation is accredited to Franz Liszt), but Vivaldi’s Four Seasons overtly follow his very illustrative text. Not only were the sonnets included in the full-score, but specific lines from each sonnet were printed in the instrumental parts, guiding each performer.
In Spring, Vivaldi labels mordents on the solo violin line “Il canto degl’ucelli”—the song of birds—to capture the spirit of flippant chirping. At the very onset of the second movement, the ensemble violas are (unfortunately) likened to barking dogs while the violins portray plants swaying in the breeze. This strong connection between text and music was revolutionary and flows through the entire work.
Languishing in the heat of Summer, we hear a cuckoo and turtledove in Vivaldi’s imagined forest. The early-summer breeze transforms into wasps in the second movement, and ultimately Summer ends with a violent storm. The third concerto, Fall, opens with a brisk village dance, commemorating a harvest festival. Here, the violin solo portrays “the drunkard” who has celebrated a bit too much and eventually takes a snooze. The fall harvest mutates into a hunt in the third movement, with the soloist portraying a “wild beast” through a flashy descending and ascending arpeggio figure. After a chase, the ill-fated beast dies. Finally, we are in Winter, the fourth concerto, and can feel our teeth chattering in the “horrid wind” notated in the score. The second movement is slushy, cold rain which freezes over in the third movement. Walking slowly, fearfully—“Caminar piano e con timore”—the solo violin trips on the ice and falls, portrayed by descending scales across the entire ensemble.
Though Winter and Spring are likely the most famous of the four concerti, Vivaldi is able to portray an entire calendar year in under 35 minutes through this masterfully narrative set of concerti.