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    Transcripts: 2. Understanding The Introduction

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    The document provides an overview of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It explains that each concerto was meant to musically depict a different season, with accompanying poems describing the scenes. For example, in "Spring" the music depicts birds singing at the beginning and a thunderstorm breaking out. It notes that Vivaldi was innovative for using instrumental music to tell such descriptive stories. The document also discusses elements like recurring themes and Vivaldi's understanding of entertaining audiences.

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    Transcripts: 2. Understanding The Introduction

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    The document provides an overview of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It explains that each concerto was meant to musically depict a different season, with accompanying poems describing the scenes. For example, in "Spring" the music depicts birds singing at the beginning and a thunderstorm breaking out. It notes that Vivaldi was innovative for using instrumental music to tell such descriptive stories. The document also discusses elements like recurring themes and Vivaldi's understanding of entertaining audiences.

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    The document provides an overview of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It explains that each concerto was meant to musically depict a different season, with accompanying poems describing the scenes. For example, in "Spring" the music depicts birds singing at the beginning and a thunderstorm breaking out. It notes that Vivaldi was innovative for using instrumental music to tell such descriptive stories. The document also discusses elements like recurring themes and Vivaldi's understanding of entertaining audiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    39 views1 page

    Transcripts: 2. Understanding The Introduction

    Uploaded by

    agj
    The document provides an overview of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It explains that each concerto was meant to musically depict a different season, with accompanying poems describing the scenes. For example, in "Spring" the music depicts birds singing at the beginning and a thunderstorm breaking out. It notes that Vivaldi was innovative for using instrumental music to tell such descriptive stories. The document also discusses elements like recurring themes and Vivaldi's understanding of entertaining audiences.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    HEAAADERLOGORIGHT

    TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

    VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS

    Transcripts
    2. Understanding the introduction

    B.Schwarm: Light, bright, and cheerful. It’s some of the most familiar of all early 18th-century music.
    It’s been featured in uncounted films and television commercials, but what is it and why
    does it sound that way? This is the opening of "Spring" from The Four Seasons by Italian
    composer Antonio Vivaldi.

    B.Schwarm: The Four Seasons are famous in part because they are a delight to the ear. However, even
    more notable is the fact that they have stories to tell. At the time of their publication in
    Amsterdam in 1725, they were accompanied by poems describing exactly what feature
    of that season Vivaldi intended to capture in musical terms. In providing specific plot
    content for instrumental music, Vivaldi was generations ahead of his time.

    B.Schwarm: If one were to read the poems simultaneously to hearing the music, one would find the
    poetic scenes synchronising nicely with the musical imagery. We are told that the birds
    welcome spring with happy song, and here they are doing exactly that. Soon, however,
    a thunderstorm breaks out.

    B.Schwarm: Not only is there musical thunder and lightning, there are also more birds, wet,
    frightened and unhappy. In "Summer", the turtle dove sings her name "tortorella" in
    Italian, before a hailstorm flattens the fields. "Autumn" brings eager hunters dashing
    out in pursuit of their prey.

    B.Schwarm: The "Winter" concerto begins with teeth chattering in the cold before one takes refuge
    by a crackling fire. Then it’s back out into the storm where there’ll be slips and falls on
    the ice. In these first weeks of winter, the old year is coming to a close, and so does
    Vivaldi’s musical exploration of the seasons.

    B.Schwarm: Not until the early 19th century would such expressive instrumental program music, as
    it was known, become popular. By then, larger, more varied ensembles were the rule
    with woodwinds, brass and percussion to help tell the tale. But Vivaldi pulled it off with
    just one violin, strings and a harpsichord.

    B.Schwarm: Unlike his contemporary, Bach, Vivaldi wasn’t much interested in complicated fugues.
    He preferred to offer readily accessible entertainment to his listeners with melodies that
    pop back up later in a piece to remind us of where we’ve been. So, the first movement
    of the "Spring" concerto begins with a theme for spring and ends with it, too, slightly
    varied from when it was last heard.

    B.Schwarm: It was an inspired way to attract listeners, and Vivaldi, considered one of the most
    electrifying violinists of the early 18th century, understood the value of attracting
    audiences. Such concerts might feature himself as the star violinist. Others presented
    the young musicians of the Pieta, a Venetian girls’ school where Vivaldi was Director of
    Music.

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