You might like to find out more about Vivaldi, one of the most influential composers of the Baroque period and also an ordained priest. You might like to listen to, and for more advanced players maybe learn a movement of a concerto for your own instrument. In this concerto you can hear the solo sections, often where the accompaniment is very light, allowing the soloist freedom to play with utmost delicacy, contrasted with the powerful sound of the full ensemble – in this case a string orchestra with harpsichord. It is normally in three movements (fast, slow, fast). I remember witnessing such a storm on holiday in Italy when there hadn’t been a drop of rain for several months.Ī concerto is a piece for solo instrument (or group of instruments) with orchestral accompaniment. As the peasants feared, the harvest is ruined and the piece comes to a breathless finish. The full fury of the storm is represented by cascades of extremely fast descending scales from all quarters of the orchestra. The Heavens thunder and roar and with hailĬut the head off the wheat and damages the grain. This is interspersed with faster sections representing the rumbles of thunder and leads straight into the final movement. Here the sustained solo violin melody depicts the exhausted peasant farmers as they gaze anxiously at the sky as a storm threatens. As the energetic fast section begins the unmistakable cuckoo call is woven into the solo violin melody, and later many individually characterised bird calls, the rather mournful turtle dove (la Tortorella) with a call quite similar to our native woodpigeon and the high pitched trilling of the Goldfinch.Īs gnats and flies buzz furiously around. The North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside.Ī series of extremely short phrases (often just two or three notes) create a restless uneasy mood, conveying the idea of the unbearable heat. Soft breezes stir the air but threatening Then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard. Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine You might like to follow the score which has the words in Italian: (NB Spring comes at the beginning at 0’00” of this recording)Īs with Spring, the music vividly depicts the words of the sonnet, translated here into English. You can find each movement at the following timings. I love the way the musicians communicate such a huge spectrum of emotions, from stillness to the almost brutal wildness of the storm. I have chosen this incredible live performance with Janine Jansen and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, directed from the violin. This week we continue with our exploration of Vivaldi’s Seasons, taking a closer look at “Summer”, the most dramatic of the four.
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