Recording: Performed by the Venice Baroque Orchestra
Scores: From IMSLP
Sonnet text: From Wikisource
- Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, La Primavera (Spring)
- L’estate (Summer) – 9’18”
- L’autunno (Autumn) – 18’54”
- L’inverno (Winter) – 29’45”
Antonio Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni). Second in popularity only to Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the original one hit wonder, this staple of easy listening lists has a lot going on after its unmistakable opening theme.
Vivaldi wrote over 500 concertos, most of which are unremarkable and remain unknown to most. So how did “Spring” gain the wild popularity it holds today? The answer is most likely its programmatic nature. Each concerto in The Four Seasons is like a musical painting of the scenes described by its accompanying sonnet.
Spot the (Musical) Picture
Today a “concerto” typically means a work featuring one instrument as a soloist. However, in Vivaldi’s day the concerto grosso consisted of a small group of soloists paired with an
orchestra. The concerto grosso uses a form called the ritornello form for its fast movements. This ritornello form consists of the full orchestra (ripieno or
tutti) playing a theme (also called the ritornello!), which alternates with a soloist or small chamber group (concertino or soli) playing new
material. The ritornello form is essentially an earlier version of rondo form, in which the music follows the pattern A B A C A (A is the theme). There is one “key” difference:
a rondo theme is always in the tonic, while the ritornello can be fragmented and modulated to different keys as the composer wishes.
Try defining these terms without copying straight from a textbook:
- concerto grosso
- ritornello form
- ritornello
- ripieno
- tutti
- concertino
- soli
- solo
Use this copy of the score of La Primavera, along with the sonnet text and recording, to do the following: (adapted from ND Music Edition): Vivaldi – Concerto E Four Seasons – Spring Op 8-1 no text.
For the following movements:
- Find and label the ritornello and solo sections (hint: they alternate!). Then match up the sections of the piece to each line in the sonnet, and briefly explain how the music depicts what the sonnet is describing. To give you a head start, I’ve done the first two sections.
- This movement is not in the concerto grosso form. It’s a straightforward slow movement with a lovely violin solo, and wait – what is going on with the viola? Explain what the violin and viola represent and which lines of the sonnet this movement refers to. There is one distinct dividing point in this movement – find out where the first phrase group ends and the next one begins.
- By the time this movement comes around, Vivaldi was running out of sonnet. Which lines of the sonnet does this entire movement describe? (Hint: it’s the last ones.) Does this movement use the concerto grosso form again? If so, identify the ritornello and the solo sections just like in the first movement.
More neat stuff
The “Four Seasons” theme (in addition to being a hotel chain) also refers to collections of pieces by other composers, most notably four of Astor Piazzolla’s heart-rending nuevo tangos. Listen to Invierno Porteño (Winter), and ask yourself, what kind of program might this piece suggest, compared with Vivaldi’s Winter?