The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a 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 1723 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention").

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 (Rachmaninoff)

Spring (Vesna), Op. 20, is a single-movement cantata for baritone, chorus and orchestra, written by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1902.

The work was finished after the famous Second Piano Concerto. Rachmaninoff intended to revise the cantata's orchestration but never did so.

Programme

The work is based on a poem by Nikolay Nekrasov and describes the return of the Zelyoniy shum, or "green rustle". The poem tells of a husband who, fraught with murderous thoughts towards his unfaithful wife during the winter season, is ultimately freed from his frustration and choler by the return of spring.

References

American Spring

American Spring (known as Spring from 1971–72) were a pop music duo formed in Los Angeles, composed of sisters Diane Rovell and Marilyn Wilson, who had earlier been members of girl group the Honeys. As with the Honeys, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (Marilyn's then-husband) played an integral role with American Spring, producing some of their recorded material.

Biography

Formation and early years

After Ginger Blake, cousin of Marilyn Wilson and Diane Rovell, left the Honeys to go pursue a solo singing career in Las Vegas in 1970, the Honeys effectively dissolved as a group. In 1971, while in her sister's kitchen, Diane Rovell pushed the idea of continuing to create music with her sister Marilyn as a pop duo named "Spring". The band had their first official recording sessions at Brian Wilson's home studio in October 1971 and issued their first single "Now That Everything's Been Said" later that month. After releasing a second single, "Good Time" in May 1972, Spring released their first album, the self-titled Spring in July 1972.

Earth (Jefferson Starship album)

Earth is a 1978 album by Jefferson Starship. The album was recorded in 1977, with the same band lineup as the previous album, Spitfire. The band had not toured in 1977, partly due to Marty Balin's reluctance to commit fully to the band. The song "Count on Me" became a Top-10 single, peaking at #8. The album itself hit #5 on the Billboard charts. A US and European tour followed which resulted in an audience riot in Germany after the band decided not to play without Grace Slick who was ill. They lost all their guitars and equipment during the riot and played one more tense show on German TV in Hamburg after which Grace left the band for one album. Marty Balin fronted the band for one more show at a Genesis concert at the Knebworth Festival in England using rented equipment. When they returned to the USA drummer John Barbata left the band after a serious car accident. This would be the end of the 1970s line-up and several new members joined the band, as well as a new record producer. Success of this album led to Jefferson Starship being contacted to provide a song for the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Earth (Wu Xing)

Earth (Chinese: 土; pinyin: tǔ), is the changing point of the matter. Earth is the third element in the Wu Xing cycle.

Earth is a balance of both yin and yang, the feminine and masculine together. Its motion is inward and centering, and its energy is stabilizing and conserving. It is associated with the color yellow and the planet Saturn, and it lies at the center of the compass in the Chinese cosmos. It is associated with the turn of each of the four seasons and with damp. It governs the Spleen, Stomach, mouth and muscles. Its negative emotion is anxiety and its positive emotion is empathy. Its Primal Spirit is represented by the Yellow Dragon. Colour Yellow, Golden (Sun).

Attributes

The Chinese think Earth is associated with the qualities of patience, thoughtfulness, practicality, hard work, and stability. The earth element is also nurturing and seeks to draw all things together with itself, in order to bring harmony, rootedness and stability. Other attributes of the earth element include ambition, stubbornness, responsibility and long-term planning.

Earth (1930 film)

Earth (Ukrainian: Земля, translit. Zemlya) is a 1930 Soviet silent film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, concerning the process of collectivization and the hostility of Kulak landowners. It is Part 3 of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy" (along with Zvenigora and Arsenal).

Plot

The film begins with the final moments of grandfather Semyon (Simon) Opanas beneath a pear tree. Next local kulaks, including Arkhyp Bilokin, contemplate the process of collectivization and declare their resistance to it, while elsewhere Semyon's grandson Vasyl (Basil) and his komsomol friends also meet to discuss collectivization, although his father is skeptical.

Later, Vasyl arrives with the community's first tractor to much excitement. After the men urinate in the overheated radiator, the peasants plow the land with the tractor and harvest the grain. A montage sequence presents the production of bread from beginning to end. That night Vasyl dances a hopak along a path on his way home, but a dark figure attacks and kills him.