Immersive Vivaldi – Program Notes

Antonio Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos for many instruments, particularly his own violin. Few pieces of classical music are as recognizable as certain passages of The Four Seasons, the first concertos in Vivaldi’s Op. 8 collection published by Le Cène of Amsterdam in 1725. They present the year’s trajectory by capturing the mood surrounding events of the calendar, but also insert outright sonic imitations of nature like chirping birds and thunder.

As an asthmatic in an era that had no effective remedy, Vivaldi was not an outdoors person: “… I stay in the house almost all the time, and I go out only by gondola or carriage, for the pain in my chest or the narrowness of the chest prevents me from walking.” He was even excused from a basic duty of his priestly training, saying Mass. Nonetheless, many priests were actively musical, even if not to the extent of Vivaldi. The gondola reference links him to Venice with which we associate him strongly, but he spent time in posts in other cities such as Mantua where The Four Seasons were possibly written. Indeed many of the concertos in Op. 8 were likely composed years before their publication, near the composer’s fortieth birthday. There are varying explanations for this, for example that Vivaldi’s annoyance at slipshod editions of his previous music led the publisher to retaliate by putting this project on the back burner.

The entirety of Op. 8 does not represent some kind of structural unity beyond The Four Seasons, which are self-sufficient either as a group or individually. In fact, it’s an even more eclectic anthology than some of Vivaldi’s others. The whole publication’s title, The Trial of Harmony and Invention, invites speculation but hints at the balance a composer must find between “following rules” (which Vivaldi was sometimes accused of neglecting) and indulging
creative fancy.

Integral to our understanding of The Four Seasons are the poems (sonnets) which accompany them. Their authorship is uncertain, but elements of literary clumsiness imply an untrained author, possibly the composer. They depict spring and autumn as basically pleasant experiences (for rural humankind at least), summer and winter as oppressive. Their narrative is followed so closely in musical representation that corresponding identification letters for various lines were transcribed in the score. Vivaldi went even further and composed special effects that needed explaining in the music, like the sleeping shepherd’s barking dog in Spring. The oldest complete manuscript, ordered by Vivaldi for presentation to a cardinal, omits text in the score itself.

Of the set, Spring was a favorite from the start, receiving the highest number of performances
during the eighteenth century in France, where concert programs were recorded. This is partly attributable to its ease of rehearsal without sudden tempo changes, but it is undeniably tuneful.

Summer is possibly the most interpretively elusive of the concertos and, as of this writing still represented in TV commercials, a common fate of The Four Seasons. Autumn includes a deliciously subtle movement without the solo violin, an inspired touch, but otherwise focuses on the pleasures of hunt and harvest with multiple drinking opportunities. Winter opens with a portrait of ice so startling Vivaldi reused it in an opera. Like the hunt and its doomed quarry in Autumn, Winter’s slow movement contains a hint of Schadenfreude directed toward the drenched outside! Its consoling quality is owed entirely to the protagonist being indoors. Throughout the set, Vivaldi demonstrates a virtuoso sensibility for impressive solo lines alternating shrewdly and unpredictably with the string orchestra.

The Four Seasons brought about a Vivaldi renaissance after the initial American recording subsequent to WWII. Now even most of his dozens of operas, previously consigned to library shelves, are easily obtained. These concertos are remarkably pliant in the face of wildly different approaches taken in the hundreds of recordings made by ensembles over the decades, including some dispensing with the violin. Although some of the other pieces in Op. 8
have descriptive titles, none has remotely competed with The Four Seasons in popularity.

Spring
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are
softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence,
and the birds take up their charming songs
once more.

Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy
branches
rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps,
his faithful dog beside him.

Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes,
nymphs and shepherds lightly dance
beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

Summer
Allegro non molto
Beneath the blazing sun’s relentless heat
men and flocks are sweltering,
pines are scorched.
We hear the cuckoo’s voice;
then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch
are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air, but the threatening
north wind sweeps them suddenly aside.
The shepherd trembles,
fearing violent storms and his fate.

Adagio e piano – Presto e forte
The fear of lightning and fierce thunder
Robs his tired limbs of rest
As gnats and flies buzz furiously around.

Presto
Alas, his fears were justified
The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail
Cut the head off the wheat and damage the
grain.

Autumn
Allegro
The peasant celebrates with song and dance
The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.
And lighted by Bacchus’ liquor,
many end their revelry in sleep.

Adagio molto
The singing and the dancing die away
as cooling breezes fan the pleasant air,
inviting all to sleep
without a care.

Allegro
The hunters emerge at the new dawn,
ready for the hunt,
with horns and dogs and guns.
Their quarry flees while they give chase.
Dazed and tired by the clamor, the wounded
prey struggles on,
but, harried, dies.

Winter
Allegro non molto
To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one’s feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.

Largo
To rest contentedly beside the hearth,
while those outside are drenched by pouring
rain.

Allegro
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously,
for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground
and
rising, hasten on across the ice lest it break.
We feel the chill north winds course through the
home
despite the locked and bolted doors…
this is winter, which nonetheless
brings its own delights.