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The most general piece of classical music in the world is Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. This music is so widely known and esteemed that it is now practically it is own brand. When you use it as a soundtrack in your production, your audience’s past associations with the music get transposed into your work adding a powerful, time-tested voice to your production. Using well-known royalty-free music as underscore in your production without delay gives your project an identifiable hook. Today The Four Seasons is world widely known and esteemed but this music in truth lay dormant on a shelf for 200 years after Vivaldi’s death. It was only with galore seminal audio recordings in the 1950s that it’s popularity begun to tardily spread. In that sense, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is rather a contemporary piece of music. Here is a short history of this widely known and esteemed work. Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Antonio Vivaldi’s best-known composition is a set of violin concertos composed in 1723 entitled the Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni). The Four Seasons is actually four person violin concertos that have been grouped together, each labeled for one of the seasons of the year. Each concerto (each season) is in three movements with a slow motion set amongst two more immediate ones. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has become arguably the most standard piece of classical music in the world with more performances and recordings than even Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. This accomplishment is further magnified when you consider that this music lay forgotten on a library shelf for two hundred years. It was not until 1950, when a recording of the Four Seasons appeared, that the piece gained notice. The success of The Four Seasons is an extraordinary traveling for a piece of music that had lived so long in utter oblivion. The popularity of The Four Seasons also points out how much Antonio Vivaldi’s music owes it’s current acclaim to the world of engineering for without audio recordings, it is doubtful that Vivaldi’s music would have gained it is current wide renown. By now every one has heard at least one of the movements from The Four Seasons. You may not have known the piece’s title but it is most frequent movements, in particular the “Spring” Allegros, are rather ubiquitous in our culture having been applied hundreds of times in national and territorial commercials, movies, TV shows, as background music in restaurants, music-on-hold messages, not to mention ceaseless radio play on classical music stations. If you’re not sure that you’ve heard a motion from The Four Seasons please listen to this recording from the UniqueTracks royalty-free classical music site. You may listen all 12 movements here but if you’re in a hurry, just listen to the firstborn movement, you will undoubtedly recognize the piece. The addictive rhythmic vitality of so much of Antonio Vivaldi’s music has led to it is rebirth and outstanding popularity among classical music lovers and the frequent public as well. Much like the music of today, Vivaldi’s music, particularly his opening motion Allegros, have a driving rhythmic vitality and are brimming with energy (The Italian word “Allegro” is a tempo indication meaning “lively” or “fast”). Vivaldi’s melodies are simple, and easy to listen to. The tempo Adagio slow movements arouse a warm and finelooking sensibility (“Adagio” means slowly). Vivaldi was a master violinist and it is thought that he wrote the Four Seasons as a performance vehicle to showcase his own virtuosity. The violin part is rather challenging without doubt even by today’s standards. An often-overlooked compositional strength in The Four Seasons is it is programmatic basis. In music, the term “programmatic” refers to a composer consciously attempting to represent something non-musical, like a story or an image, in the composition. This type of composing is called tone-painting; the composition is a tone poem. In the Four Seasons, Vivaldi takes four poems titled Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and transforms respective passages directly into music. He is rather literal. When the poem speaks of birds, we listen bird calls in the music. Throughout the movements you may listen musical depictions of streams, thunder, lightning, a dog barking, even drunkards that have fallen asleep. These images may be found painted musically all around the piece. Here is a translation of the introductory poem Spring. It is now believed that Vivaldi himself wrote the poems. Spring has come and with it gaiety, The sky is covered with dark clouds, Then does the meadow, in full flower, Rejoicing in the pastoral bagpipes, Believe it or not, these poetic images are in a literal sense “painted” allround the Spring movements of The Four Seasons. The bird calls may be heard in the Allegro, First motion from the Spring concerto. They appear right when the violin solos begin (about 30 seconds into the piece). This gives way to the undulating sounds of a rushing brook. Next lightning and thunder are heard only to subside as the bird calls return. It’s hard to believe today that Vivaldi’s music would be destined to lie dormant for 200 years. Vivaldi himself had fallen into obscurity by the end of his lifetime. He passed from physical life penniless in Vienna in 1741. His music nearly disappeared until just after World War 2. Since then, it is popularity has exploded. The Four Seasons concertos are now steadily performed concert pieces and are amidst the most famous pieces of music in the world. Whether it is the likeable rhythmic drive or the gorgeous warmth of the baroque violins, people are just naturally drawn to this music. Poem translation from: |
