The Four Seasons
WRITTEN BY
Betsy Schwarm
Betsy Schwarm is a music
historian based in Colorado. She serves on the music faculty of Metropolitan
State University of Denver and gives pre-performance talks for Opera Colorado
and the Colorado Symphony.
The Four Seasons, Italian Le
quattro stagioni, group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio
Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They
were written about 1720 and were published in 1725 (Amsterdam), together with
eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione
(“The Contest Between Harmony and Invention”).
In which city did Ludwig van
Beethoven give his first public performance as an adult?
The Four Seasons is the best
known of Vivaldi’s works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the
concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that
elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to
evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was
later called program music—music with a narrative element.
Vivaldi took great pains to
relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines
themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the
Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in
the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi
separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each
linked sonnet into three sections. His arrangement is as follows:
Spring (Concerto No. 1 in E
Major)
Allegro
Spring has arrived with joy
Welcomed by the birds with happy
songs,
And the brooks, amidst gentle
breezes,
Murmur sweetly as they flow.
The sky is caped in black, and
Thunder and lightning herald a
storm
When they fall silent, the birds
Take up again their delightful
songs.
Largo e pianissimo sempre
And in the pleasant,
blossom-filled meadow,
To the gentle murmur of leaves
and plants,
The goatherd sleeps, his faithful
dog beside him.
Allegro
To the merry sounds of a rustic
bagpipe,
Nymphs and shepherds dance in
their beloved spot
When Spring appears in splendour.
Summer (Concerto No. 2 in G
Minor)
Allegro non molto
Under the merciless sun of the
season
Languishes man and flock, the
pine tree burns.
The cuckoo begins to sing and at
once
Join in the turtledove and the
goldfinch.
A gentle breeze blows, but Boreas
Is roused to combat suddenly with
his neighbour,
And the shepherd weeps because
overhead
Hangs the fearsome storm, and his
destiny.
Adagio
His tired limbs are robbed of
rest
By his fear of the lightning and
the frightful thunder
And by the flies and hornets in
furious swarms.
Presto
Alas, his fears come true:
There is thunder and lightning in
the heavens
And the hail cuts down the tall
ears of grain.
Autumn (Concerto No. 3 in F
Major)
Allegro
The peasant celebrates with
dancing and singing
The pleasure of the rich harvest,
And full of the liquor of Bacchus
They end their merrymaking with a
sleep.
Adagio molto
All are made to leave off dancing
and singing
By the air which, now mild, gives
pleasure
And by the season, which invites
many
To find their pleasure in a sweet
sleep.
Allegro
The hunters set out at dawn, off
to the hunt,
With horns and guns and dogs they
venture out.
The beast flees and they are
close on its trail.
Already terrified and wearied by
the great noise
Of the guns and dogs, and wounded
as well
It tries feebly to escape, but is
bested and dies.
Winter (Concerto No. 4 in F
Minor)
Allegro non molto
Frozen and shivering in the icy
snow,
In the severe blasts of a
terrible wind
To run stamping one’s feet each
moment,
One’s teeth chattering through
the cold.
Largo
To spend quiet and happy times by
the fire
While outside the rain soaks
everyone.
To walk on the ice with tentative
steps,
Going carefully for fear of
falling.
To go in haste, slide, and fall
down to the ground,
To go again on the ice and run,
In case the ice cracks and opens.
To hear leaving their iron-gated
house Sirocco,
Boreas, and all the winds in
battle—
This is winter, but it brings
joy.