The structural thinking behind Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was that each movement – twelve in all (three per season) – would establish a certain mood, against which narrative events could then play out. Where Vivaldi undeniably did succeed was in his successful exploration of compositional techniques – those that made The Four Seasons. Programme music hasn’t exactly been welcomed into composition’s hallowed sanctuary with open arms, despite the best efforts of Haydn, Beethoven and Richard Strauss. With his elevation of descriptive music, Vivaldi ignited a debate that lasted for centuries and saw the art of telling stories through wordless sounds criticised by those who believed music should transcend earthly description. With his unequalled gift for orchestral colour and melody, if anyone could do it, Vivaldi could. Vivaldi was determined to prove that descriptive music could be sophisticated, intricate and virtuosic enough to be taken seriously – and that it could advance the cause of the concerto at the same time. So-called ‘programme music’ existed before, but it was seen by some as inferior and regressive. Vivaldi had set himself quite a challenge, but he’d also hit upon an idea that a lot of music theorists didn’t like. The concerto form – one soloist playing opposite a bigger ensemble – would be preserved throughout. 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 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. 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. The crux of the issue was musical ‘description’. In these seemingly polite and pretty works, the composer opened a philosophical can of worms that continued to brim over with wriggling controversies for centuries. The Four Seasons had the theorists frothing too. And it wasn’t just the concert-going folk of northern Italy who experienced Vivaldi’s stylistic shot-in-the-arm. They might not have provoked a riot but, when Vivaldi’s Four Seasons were first heard in the early 1720s, their audience hadn’t heard anything quite like them before. Like those other seismic cultural milestones, Vivaldi’s most popular concertos also changed the course of musical history. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Beethoven’s Fifth… and yes, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

The Four Seasons: A Guide To Vivaldi’s Radical Violin Concertos

The four seasons vivaldi