";s:4:"text";s:3792:" With his unequalled gift for orchestral colour and melody, if anyone could do it, Vivaldi could.So did he succeed? For example, “Winter” is peppered with silvery pizzicato notes from the high strings, calling to mind icy rain, whereas “Summer” evokes a thunderstorm in its final movement, which is why the movement is often called “Storm” (as noted in the list of derivative works).The concertos were first published in 1725 as part of a set of twelve concerti, Vivaldi’s Op. But he was itching to explore something more: the depiction of particular landscapes and scenes (in this case, the earth’s cycle of seasons) in music that would also convey specifics of human behaviour. Vivaldi was an 18th-century composer associated with the ornate Baroque period of music.
The texture of each concerto is varied, each resembling its respective season. Classical home listening: a fearless Four Seasons, plus Britten folk songs Violinist Arabella Steinbacher dazzles in Vivaldi and Piazzolla. Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more. No wonder musicians talk of the intense imagination and character required to bring these concertos off. The 1955 set with Felix Ayo was that ensemble’s first recording of any music; subsequent I Musici recordings feature Felix Ayo again in 1959, Roberto Michelucci in 1969, Pina Carmirelli in 1982, Federico Agostini in 1990, and Mariana Sîrbu in 1995. Vivaldi dedicated their publication to a Bohemian patron, Count Václav Morzin (of Vrchlabí 1676–1737), and in so mentioned the count’s longstanding regard for these four, in particular (which had apparently been performed with the nobleman’s orchestra, in Prague’s Morzin Palace)—although his dedication may have been closely related to the completion of an Augustinian monastery that year, where Vivaldi, a priest himself, refers to Morzin, the church’s dedicator, as “Chamberlain and Counsellor to His Majesty, the Catholic Emperor”—while (as Maestro di Musica in Italy) Vivaldi presents them anew, with sonnets or enhancements for clear interpretation. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox.
If you’ve ever wondered how on earth a composer can describe specific human interactions or states of mind, in an orchestral work without recourse to setting words, then you’re thinking on the very same quandary that was occupying the sizeable brain of Antonio Vivaldi in the early 1720s.Vivaldi was working in Mantua and had already written dozens of violin concertos prompted by the fact that he was probably the best violinist on the planet. The 1969 recording by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner, featuring soloist Alan Loveday, reputedly moved the piece from the realm of esoterica to that of program and popular staple.Nigel Kennedy’s 1989 recording of The Four Seasons with the English Chamber Orchestra sold over two million copies, becoming one of the best-selling classical works ever.