[PDF] Programme notes: Spring (of the Four Seasons) by Antonio Vivaldi

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Programme notes: Spring (of the Four Seasons) by Antonio Vivaldi (1675 - 1741)

Vivaldi was a baroque composer who wrote many concertos. He was in charge of music in a girl's school in Venice and

composed more than 400 concertos, of both the Concerto Grosso and the Solo Concerto, for his pupils to play.

Vivaldi started off as a priest in St. Mark's cathedral in Venice, however because he left the alter while celebrating Mass

he was barred from saying Mass and soon left the church to become the Director at the Ospedale della Pieta, which was a

girls orphanage with an excellent orchestra, where he composed most of his concertos. (2)

The Four

Seasons, composed in 1723, are four solo concertos for a solo Violin, and an orchestra made up of two groups of

violins, a group of violas and a bass continuo, which is made up of cellos, double basses and a harpsichord. These

concertos are

programmatic or descriptive concertos, which mean that each one begins with a poem, that Vivaldi himself

wrote, which describe that particular season of the year. Each poem is broken up into sections, labelled by letters with

each section corresponding to a particular part of each concerto. Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons because he loved to create music with brilliant effects, like wide leaps from one register

to another. He also wanted to attempt to describe natural phenomena such as storms, wind, rain and the sound of bird calls. The Four Seasons were inspired by four paintings of the seasons by the artist Marco Ricci. So the Four Seasons is a

combination of the arts of music, painting and poetry. (1)

The first concerto of the Four Seasons is Spring, describing its freshness and beauty. Spring is a solo concerto with 3

movements: quick, slow, quick. The first movement includes birdsong and a spring storm; the second a shepherd who

sleeps with his faithful dog by his side and the third is a lively spring dance.

The quick movements are written in Ritornello form, which literally means "returning". In this form a main theme is

played by the orchestra at the beginning of the piece and then is kept returning to after each solo section. In

Spring the

ritornellos were marked in the music by the word "tutti" which means everyone.

There are many different techniques used in Spring. The opening movement starts off with a cheerful and joyful theme

which consists of an opening phrase and an answering phrase; this is played by the whole orchestra, and goes to the words

of the poem:

Spring has arrived

. Then the first solo is played, which imitates the sound of bird song and uses many

techniques to do this, including mordent, staccato, layered entries, trill and imitation. After this the answering phrase is

repeated again, which is the basis for the Ritornello form, which gives the piece a feeling of continuity. The second solo is

then performed which represents the flowing of streams and the blowing of the wind. To do this Vivaldi uses slurs to slur

every two notes together, this is a flowing felling representing the flowing of stream, and it also creates a feeling of

movement which represents the blowing of the wind. The third solo is describing a spring storm, with the sky turning

black and thunder and lightning. Vivaldi creates this effect by having all of the instruments play in unison in a low pitch

so that the music sounds heavy and ominous, he also uses contrast; contrasting between a heavy fast rubbing sound using

the "tremolo" techniques and a quick

ascending pitch run played by the solo violin to create the effect of uncertainty. After this the bird song solo reoccurs and after going back to the ritornello a few times the movement finishes. One thing that differs from today is that in the Baroque period the string instruments did not use vibrato, which they do use today.

(3)

The first time I list

ened to Spring I thought that it was so beautiful: the way that the Ritornello kept reoccurring after each

solo, and the fluidity of this piece made it very enjoyable to listen to. After doing an analysis on it I was even more

surprised to find out how technical and perfect some of the techniques used in this piece were. I was fascinated how each

section of the concerto actually sounded like the part of the poem that it corresponded to; it was very surprising that a lot

of different moods and themes could b

e portrayed by the violins by using a range of technical devices and performance practices. Spring is an amazing piece of music and it has opened my eyes up to the wonder that baroque music can have. I

hope that as you listen to it you enjoy it as much as I do. (4)

Publicity: Newspaper article

At 7 o'clock, on

Sunday the 19

October the Johnathon Luiten Orchestra, featuring various soloists from around the

world including the famous Nigel Kennedy and the fabulous Lara Hall, will perform a concert of Baroque music at Forum

North in Whangarei, free of charge, sponsored by Jonathon Luiten himself. I highly recommend you go along.

I'm sure some of you fabulous readers want to know more about this concert.

The concert will last just under two hours and includes The Four Seasons, by Vivaldi; two of the Brandenburg Concertos,

by Bach; a Fantasy by Purcell; a Canon by Pachelbel; a Viola Concerto by Telemann; and a Concerto Grosso by Handel.

The Four Seasons, which will be performed first, consist of four differen t concertos: Spring, Summer, Autumn and

Student 3: Low Merit

Winter, which describes the season to which it corresponds. Each was written about a painting of that season and so each

piece describes the painting, also each piece has a poem that goes along with it that describes that season, and all the

different things that happen in that season that are portrayed by the music. The Four Seasons is played by a solo

instrument, the violin, played by Nigel Kennedy, and accompanied by an orchestra which plays in contrast to the soloist.

The orchestra is made up of twelve violins split into two groups, four violas, and a basso continuo part which is played by

three cellos a double bass and a harpsichord. (5)

Pachelbel's Canon is another piece written in the Baroque period, which has been made very famous today and has been

transcribed to many different instruments. In this concert it will be performed the way it was in the Baroque period, with three solo violinists (Nigel Kennedy, Laura Hill and Johnathan

Carney) which make up the con

certino, which is a small

group of soloists that play in contrast to the main orchestra. (6) The main orchestra will be made up of ten violins, four

violas, and the Basso Continuo, made up of three cellos and double bass and a harpsichord. Another movement that will

be played is Telemann's Viola concerto in G major. This was one of the very first concertos composed for a solo viola,

and since then the idea has caught, with many other viola concertos having been composed since then.

The instruments

involved

in this piece will be the solo viola (played by Lawrence Power) and an accompanying orchestra made up of

twelve violins, four violas, three cellos, a double bass and a harpsichord.

All of the pieces to be performed were composed in the heart of the Baroque era of music. Although many of these pieces

have been edited to be played as if they were modern compositions, in this concert they will all be played like they

originally would have been back in the Baroque era. One of the main things that make this con cert authentically Baroque

is the size of the orchestra. In the Baroque time orchestras were quite small, consisting of not much more than twenty

instruments compared to the classical and romantic periods, where orchestra size is very large. This concert is effectively

Baroque because the orchestra consists of only twelve violins, four violas, three cellos, and double bass and a harpsichord.

This brings me to the second reason why this concert is authentically Baroque: the choice of instruments.

As I said

earlier, all of these pieces are played on the instrument they were designed for; in the Baroque period there

weren't as many instruments as we have today. Mainly strings were played, for this reason most of the pieces are for

string soloists (except for the harpsichord piece) and for a string orchestra, including violins, violas, cellos and double

basses. Another common instrument of the time was the harpsichord, which is the predecessor to the piano. Bach's fifth

Brandenburg Concerto is a harpsichord solo concerto which will be played at this concert. As well as this the harpsichord

plays in the orchestra of most songs as well, teaming up with the cellos and the double bass to play the Basso Continuo,

which is a very special part of the Baroque period, as it is signature to this period. The Basso Continuo is a bass line that

repeats itself often, it is usually written in the form of figured bass which is another signature of the Baroque period, as

is where only the bass note of each chord appears with a number (or numbers) written underneath it to represent whether the note is in root position, inverted or a 7 . This is what will be played at this concert.

Another thing that makes this

concert close to an authentic Baroque concert is that the performance practices used in this concert will be as they were in

the Baroque era, such as none of the string instruments will use vibrato, although this is a relatively common practice

today, it was not used in the Baroque era. (7)

The final thing that this concert is going to do to make the feeling as authentically Baroque as possible is, where possible,

instruments made in the Baroque period with be used by the musicians. These instruments sound different to the ones

made today because they were all hand-made, used special wood and the finger board was shorter. Violins and violas did

not have chin

-rests. Nigel Kennedy will be bringing his very special Stradivari violin made in the year that the Four

Seasons were composed. (8)

This concert is going to be absolutely fantastic, if you want to see a once in a lifetime, world-class performance of

authentic Baroque music, this is not to be missed. I know that I am going, and I hope to see everyone else that reads this

article turn out for this spectacle that is happening in our city.quotesdbs_dbs2.pdfusesText_4

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