Secondary General Music Lesson Ideas
The Back Story...
Vivaldi, a baroque composer, loved to create music with brilliant effects: wide leaps from one register to another; attempts to describe natural phenomena such as storms, wind, and rain; simulated bird calls; dramatic contrasts of loud and soft, or of full ensemble versus a solo instrument; and scales that zoomed up and down like a rollercoaster. Among his many compositions are The Four Seasons, violin concertos that are considered Program Music because they convey the sounds, events, and feelings of winter, spring, summer and autumn.
The Four Seasons violin concertos, written in 1720, are without doubt his most famous, and can be heard in TV advertisements, as background music in restaurants and in films (Pretty Woman, and Spy Game to name a couple), and during weddings or fancy events. Yet as recently as fifty years ago, hardly anyone knew this music. It started to become popular when violinist Louis Kaufmann played it on a CBS radio broadcast in the summer of 1950. Today you can choose from over one hundred recordings of The Four Seasons, including arrangements for flute, harp, soprano, guitar trio, or brass quintet, jazz quartet, strings, and even for traditional Chinese instruments!
Vivaldi intended The Four Seasons to be an artistic tour de force marrying the arts of painting, poetry, and music. They were as new and exciting to people in Vivaldi’s time as the release of an eagerly anticipated movie is for us. In fact, Vivaldi wrote sonnets to match each season to describe what he was thinking while he composed this group of pieces.
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his
faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the
brilliant canopy of spring.
Allegro
Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances,
The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.
And fired up by Bacchus' liquor, many end their revelry in sleep.
Adagio molto
Everyone is made to forget their cares and to sing and dance
By the air which is tempered with pleasure
And (by) the season that invites so many, many
Out of their sweetest slumber to fine enjoyment.
Allegro
The hunters emerge at the new dawn,
And with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting
The beast flees and they follow its trail;
Terrified and tired of the great noise
Of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens.
Four Seasons
~ Program Music
Allegro non molto
Under a hard Season, fired up by the Sun
Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine
We hear the cuckoo's voice; then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air… but threatening north wind sweeps them suddenly aside.
The shepherd trembles, fearing violent storms and his fate.
Adagio e piano - Presto e forte
The fear of lightning and fierce thunder
Robs his tired limbs of rest
As gnats and flies buzz furiously around.
Presto
Alas, his fears were justified
The Heavens thunder and roar and majestically
Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain.
Allegro non molto
Shivering, frozen mid the frosty snow in biting, stinging winds;
running to and fro to stamp one's icy feet, teeth chattering in the bitter chill.
Largo
To rest contentedly beside the hearth, while those outside are drenched by
pouring rain.
Allegro
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice
lest it cracks up. We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite
the locked and bolted doors. This is winter, which nonetheless brings its own
delights.
