XM8028

CLASSICS EXPLAINED
An Introduction to...
An Introduction to...
VIVALDI
The Four Seasons
written and narrated by Jeremy Siepmann
Contents
The Composer and the Work l
2 Vivaldi: A Biographical Sketch 5
3 Place and Importance 13
4 The Work's Reception 15
5 Essay: Concerto and Contrast 17
6 Track List 19
7 Analysis 25
8 Challenges to the Interpreter 54
9 Structural Overview 58
10 Ways of Listening 67
II What Music Is 71
12 What Music Isn't 76
13 Guide to the Composer's Tools 78
14 The Basic Forms of Music 85
15 Glossary 97
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Seasons
THE COMPOSER AND THE WORK

The Historical Background 1
With the crumbling of the Roman Empire in the 5th century A.O., thousands of refugees
from the barbarian invasions on the mainland fled to the comparative safety of lagoons in the
northernmost reaches of the Adriatic Sea. Settling on some of the hundred muddy islands
which awaited them, they built their homes on stilts. Deprived of land on which to farm, they drew
their early living from the sea. As their boats ventured further afield in search of trade, the
population grew and prospered. More homes and buildings were erected on piles driven into
the mud flats, in some cases into the sea bed itself. The water was then channelled into
canals between the islands, greatly facilitating communications. Trade expanded, the
Venetian navy grew apace, and by the 10th century Venice had become the first maritime power
in Western Europe to derive its prosperity entirely from overseas trade. By the 14th century, she
was the hub ofa commercial and maritime empire rivalling that of the Ancient Greeks, and by
the middle of the 15th, her domain stretched from the Alps in the north to Constantinople
(now Istanbul) in the south and east.
In 1571 she contributed signally to the defeat and disintegration of the Turkish Ottoman
Empire, but the days of her dominance were numbered. With the discovery of the New
World and the Cape route to the Far East, her position as a major player on the world stage
ebbed away. By the early 18th century. when Vivaldi came of age, Venice, like so many other
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Classics Explained: Vivaldi 77,e Four Seasons
erstwhile powers
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before and since, had become heavily reliant on the tourist trade. And in this she was not to be
outdone. Then as now, travellers from all over the world came to marvel at her beauty and her
picturesque oddity (what other city is built on stilts?); to revel in her sheer exotic atmosphere; to
dine at her restaurants, and enjoy her many theatres; to profit (or otherwise) from her famous
gambling casinos, to admire and acquire the works of her painters - and to listen to her music.
Venice herself became a commodity. Her fame as a cultural centre spread throughout Europe,
helped in no small part by the many great painters associated with her: the Bellinis, Canaletto,
Carpaccio, Giorgione, Mantegna, Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese, to name a generous handful.
In the 18th and 19th centuries she became an obligatory stop on the so-called Grand Tour,
without which no foreigner (and particularly no Englishman), could rightly call himself an
educated man.
Few visitors left the city without some treasurable memento. Almost as prized in this regard
as paintings and glassware were musical manuscripts, which carried the work of Venetian
composers far beyond Italy.
Of all the tourist attractions in Vivaldi's Venice, none beld a higher place than opera. No
city had done more to open this highly expensive form of entertainment to the general public
(it had previously been the exclusive preserve of the ruling aristocracy). It was in Venice that the
world's first public opera house was opened, in 1637, soon to be followed by four others.
What began as a fever now became an epidemic. Within only a few years, and for many
decades, Venice was able to offer a greater number of productions and a frequency of
performances which far outstripped the capacities of Rome, Naples, Milan and Bologna put
together. As one seasoned observer marvelled, "At certain seasons the operas here play every
day, and in six theatres at the same time." Moreover, they played in most seasons whereas their
rivals elsewhere mounted only a single season per year, running roughly from Christmas to
Easter. Vivaldi himself wrote no fewer than 46 operas(!).
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Classics Explained: Vivaldi TT,e Four Seasons
Nor were Venice's musical attractions by any means confined to the opera houses.
Chamber and orchestral concerts (known as 'academies') were regularly mounted in private
homes, and often played to two audiences: those within, and those without. As a visiting
Frenchman observed, "There is hardly an evening when there is not an academy somewhere.
The populace rushes out onto the canal to listen to it with as much keenness as ifit were for
the first time."
As well as attracting the attention and custom of the well-to-do throughout the civilized world,
music was now one of the city's greatest exports, as composers came to put more and more of
their effort into readily exportable types of music (most notably opera and the concerto).
Musically speaking, Venice had become a trend setter for the whole of Europe.
The Musical Scene. It was in the Baroque era that instrumental music came for the first time
to rival vocal music in importance and character. Previously, there had been no real distinction in
style between the two. Nowhere was this more evident than in music for string instruments. It
was in the baroque era that the violin came largely to replace the 'viols' of the Renaissance, and
that composers (mostly Italian) developed an idiomatic violin style which would have been
impossible to reproduce with the human voice. The composers most responsible for this were
Corelli [1653-1713], Geminiani [1687-17], Tartini [1692-1770], Torelli [1658-1709] and Vivaldi.
For the first time, string instruments were used for both solo and ensemble music.
Characteristics of Baroque Instrumental Music. Along with the development of distinctive
instrumental styles came a profusion of instrumental forms, of which the so-called 'trio sonata'
and the concerto were the most important. The period also saw the birth and development of the
instrumental virtuoso, most of whom, like Vivaldi, were virtuoso composers as well. This was
also the age of the first great instrument makers, of whom the most famous, where string
instruments are concerned, were Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), Nicolo Amati (1596-1684) and
Giuseppe Guarneri (1681-1742). On the whole, instrumental music was polyphonic [see
Glossary], and the bass line became more important than at any time before or since. In almost
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all Baroque instrumental music, an important part was played by the harpsichord or organ,
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which served both to highlight the bass line and to fill out the texture and the prevailing
harmonies. This keyboard role is generally known as the basso continua and may be heard
discreetly contributing to the present performance of The Four Seasons. After the harpsichord
and organ, the violin was by far the most common solo instrument.
The principal forms of Baroque instrumental music were the Dance Suite (also called
'partita'), the Sonata, the Prelude and Fugue (mostly for keyboard) and the Concerto [see below,
under The Basic Forms of Music].
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Vivaldi: A Biographical Sketch 2
By the time of his birth, in 1678, Vivaldi's family had rather come down in the world. Unlike his
forebears, who had produced a distinguished succession of senators, ambassadors, generals and
governors, Agostino Vivaldi, the composer's grandfather, was a tailor. Giovanni Battista,
Antonio's father (despite a misleading address: The Bakery, San Marino parish) was a barber and
wigmaker. But it was no ordinary barber who also played the violin in the orchestra of St. Mark's
Basilica, the most famous and grandiose church in Venice, and enjoyed a considerable reputation
as a virtuoso. Given the nature of his father's double profession, it's unsurprising that Antonio
became both musician and priest (the latter signifying not so much his holiness, for which the
evidence is slim, as an ambition to rise in society). Although his compositions and his own
virtuosity on the violin were to bring him widespread fame, he was commonly known not by his
surname but as "the Red Priest", a testament to his flaming ginger hair.
Despite his colourful appearance and his phenomenal output, Vivaldi suffered throughout his
life from a somewhat mysterious disability which he often cited as an excuse for this or that, most
notably the fact (recorded in a letter from 1737) that he gave up saying the Mass about a year
after being ordained (and never intended to say it again), and his later assertion that "I almost
always remain at home and go out only in a gon<;lola or carriage, since my chest ailment prevents
me from walking."
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Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Seasnns
He learned the violin from his father, whom he was later to surpass, he studied the harpsichord
(possibly on his own), and of course he mastered the craft of composition, though again we have
no evidence of his having learned this from anyone in particular. Much of it, of course, was the
fruit of simple observation. Any intelligent and intensely musical child, let alone a child of
genius, is going to learn most by listening to the masters, even minor masters (Mozart, after all,
didn't discover the music of Bach and Handel until he was at the peak of his career. Apart from
his father and J.C. Bach, youngest son of J.S., the principal influences on him in boyhood and
youth were the likes of Wanhal, Jomelli, Adlgass9r and other now-all-but-forgotten figures). Our
knowledge of Vivaldi's youthful endeavours is sketchy. We know more ab6ut his route to the
priesthood, which began when he was 15 and ended with his ordination ten years later (by which
time his musical reputation was already overtaking his father's). In this same year, he began his
long association with one of Italy's most remarkable institutions.
Among the unique features of Venice's cultural life were the four 'ospedali' (literally,
'hospitals'), which produced some of the city's finest musicians. These were not medical
establishments, however, but charitable institutions for orphaned, abandoned, illegitimate or
otherwise impoverished children. The oldest and most famous of these fixtures was the Ospedale
della Pieta. Founded in 1346, it was subsidized by the state and operated by a board of governors
appointed by the Senate. By Vivaldi's time, it housed upwards of a thousand girls, many of whom
were given specialized training as professional musicians. Of these, an impressive number could
be ranked with the foremost virtuosos of their time (though women were debarred from
becoming professional musicians), and the orchestra was among the finest in Europe. In
sheer versatility, the best of the girls put the average virtuoso to shame. One, known simply
as Anna Maria of the Pieta, was equally proficient at the harpsichord, violin, cello, viola
d'amore, lute, theorbo and mandolin, while others excelled not only as instrumentalists but as
singers of exceptional distinction. The range of their skills was widely remarked by visiting
foreigners. As one put it, "They play the violin, the recorder, the organ, the oboe, the cello, the
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bassoon ... There
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Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Seasnns
is no instrument large enough to frighten them." During Vivaldi's period of service, which ran,
with some breaks, from 1703 to 1740, the instrumental ranks were further swelled by the
introduction of the clarinet, the transverse flute, the horn and (most unfeminine of instruments)
the timpani, or kettle-drums. Several of Vivaldi's works would seem to indicate that the trumpet
was also played occasionally, though the governors' mistrust of this traditionally masculine (if not
indeed profane) instrument suggests that it was imported on an occasional basis, and never
taught. The staff of the Pieta was predominantly female, and much of the musical tuition was
undertaken by the girls themselves (the most advanced teaching their less experienced juniors).
Male members of staff were more tolerated than welcome, and were generally employed on a
part-time basis, either when a new instrument was introduced into the curriculum or when the
overall standard had dropped for one reason or another. Nor, as a rule, were they even draughted
in as tenors and basses when choral works were mounted. The girls simply sang the male parts in
a higher register, and were often identified, since most lacked a surname, by the part they sang or
the instrument they played. Thus we encounter references to 'Francesca dal Tenor', 'Cecilia dal
Basso', 'Maria dal Violoncello' and so on.
Vivaldi's employment at the Pieta derived originally from the incumbent director's desire to
raise the standard of string-playing to new heights. As well as teaching violin to the girls, he
served as conductor of the orchestra and as unofficial composer-in-residence, in which role he
bathed the Pieta in reflected glory. And he was well rewarded, receiving in his middle-twenties a
salary four times greater than his father's.
Vivaldi's Op.2 (a set of twelve sonatas for violin and harpsichord) was dedicated, improbably
and at rather short notice, to King Frederick IV of Denmark and Norway, who was visiting
Venice incognito (concealing himself, wherever possible, behind a traditional carnival mask).
Thus Vivaldi's reputation and his music were carried at an early stage of his career far beyond the
boundaries of his native Italy.
We get some idea of his activities from' a motion debated by the governors on 2 June 1715:
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This pious congregation having noted from the petition of the Reverend Don Antonio Vivaldi,
violin master in this pious establishment, and the deposition of the Officers in charge of Music
just read out, the acknowledged services and well-rewarded labours performed by him, not only
in the successful and universally approved teaching of musical instruments to the girls, but also
the excellent musical compositions supplied after the departure of the above-mentioned maestro
Gasparini - a complete Mass, a Vespers, an oratorio, over 30 motets and other works - and seeing
fit in its generosity to give him a token of its gratitude and recompense him in part for these
services outside his normal duties, resolves that a single payment of 50 ducats be made to him
from our exchequer in appreciation of his efforts and special contributions. And may this reward
alw stimulate him to make further contributions and to perfect still more the performing abilities
of the girls of this our orchestra, so necessary to the musical standards and the good reputation of
this our chapel.
Vivaldi's services at the Pieta were intermittent, broken by periods of travel, which he seems
to have been able to undertake in spite of his mysterious ailment. The first of these journeys was
to oversee the production at Vicenza of his first opera, Ottone in Villa. His next 18 operas were
produced in Venice itself, at the Teatro de San Angelo, and established him as the city's favourite
operatic son.
His international reputation was further advanced by his profitable relations with northern
Europe's most powerful publisher, Estienne Roger of Amsterdam, who scored his most
resounding hit when he brought out Vivaldi's first collection of concertos, L'estro armonico, op.3,
in 1711. Remarkably, a number of distinguished scholars have cited this as the most influential
collection of instrumental works to appear during the whole of the 18th century (quite a claim,
given that the century was also graced by Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, all of Haydn's 104
symphonies, and the complete works of Mozart). Vivaldi's principal innovations in concerto
writing include the presence within the orchestra of solo parts (The Four Seasons makes this plain
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Classics Explained: Vivaldi T11e Four Seasons
virtually from the outset), the cultivation of a three-movement cycle, and the use of so-called
'ritornello' form in the outer movements (see Glossary and discussion on pl3). Among those
composers directly influenced by the Vivaldian model were Giuseppe Tartini, Pietro Locatelli
and most importantly, J.S. Bach, who arranged a number of Vivaldi's concertos for solo
keyboard (and one as a concerto for four harpsichords and strings). But Vivaldi himself hadn't
arisen from a vacuum. His own practice had been influenced by such older colleagues as Torelli
and Albinoni.
And through all these years of apparently tireless output (seemingly unaffected by his
'ailment'), he maintained a level of virtuosity on the violin which may have been unique in his
time. As one visitor from Germany put it, "His playing really frightened me, for such playing has
never been nor can be: he brought his fingers up to only a straw's distance from the bridge,
leaving no room for the bow - and that on all four strings, with fugal imitations and incredible
speed. With such playing he astounds all who hear him."
With his playing mesmerising all who heard it, his triumphs at the opera, his many works for
the church and the ever-mounting demand for his music throughout Europe, Vivaldi fell out of
favour with the governors of the Pieta, who were concerned, reasonably enough, at the extent of
his extra-curricular activity, which only increased with his fame. The popularity of his music
north of the Alps, particularly in Germany, brought a steady stream of visitors to Venice, all eager
to meet (and many to study with) the great composer, who was still on the sunny side of forty.
One result was a link with the royal court at Dresden which soon became the centre of a fast-
growing Vivaldi cult.
In 1718, Vivaldi left Venice and the Pieta for Mantua, where he served at the court of the
music-loving Prince Philip for three years, and turned his attentions mainly to opera, composing
one, Tito Manlio, in the space offive days(!)- a feat which made even Handel seem like a tortoise.
It was also in Mantua that he wrote most of his 40 solo cantatas, and there, too, that he met the
comely young contralto Anna Giro, who later took up residence in his house, firing the
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imaginations of gossip-mongers throughout Italy. Vivaldi insisted that their intimacy was purely
artistic, but his protests fell on sceptical ears.
There now followed a curious period in which his operas fell from grace in Venice while
continuing to score resounding hits almost everywhere else. In Rome, he twice played for the
Pope in the latter's private apartments, and enjoyed the patronage of the powerful Cardinal
Ottoboni. In Germany his popularity continued unabated, and the publication of his concertos,
op.8 (beginning with the The Four Seasons), won him a new and rapturous audience in France.
The king himself conceived a special liking for the opening concerto ('Spring'), and commanded
a private performance of it by a hastily assembled orchestra including several noblemen. As with
most very popular works, it underwent a number of arrangements, of which the most unlikely
were a religious motet (by Michel Corrette, whose special enthusiasms included the hurdy gurdy),
and a reverie for unaccompanied flute by the philosopher and self-styled composer Jean Jacques
Rousseau.
In 1727, now back in Venice, Vivaldi composed three more operas in as many months, but
they all enjoyed greater success abroad than at home. Towards the end of the decade, he travelled
for the first time to Vienna, where he enjoyed the attentions of the Austrian Emperor Charles VI,
to whom he dedicated his next two collections of concertos, opp.9 and 12. The emperor gratefully
lavished much money on the composer, bestowing on him, as well, a golden chain, a medal and
an honourary knighthood. One courtier observed that "the emperor spoke more with Vivaldi in
two weeks than he speaks to his ministers in two years."
The ailment which had once ostensibly kept him homebound would seem to have subsided
dramatically, as Vivaldi now extended his journeys to include Bohemia. In 1730 he wrote a new
opera (Argippo) for Prague, where several of his earlier ones were already well known. Again he
was accorded the greatest celebrity. Yet in 1735, after his triumphal tours, we find him once
again in Venice, returning to his long interrupted duties at the Pieta: teaching, composing and
rehearsing. The governors, it seems, had taken at face value a report that Vivaldi had resolved to
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remain in Venice, "without any more thought of leaving, as he had done in past years". Within
two years he was off again, however, this time to Ferrara, where he failed three times over to
mount a season of his operas. He returned to Venice much discouraged. The truth is that he was
being overtaken by changes in fashion to which he could find no response. He was a composer
whose style had been clearly established at the very outset of his career and altered hardly at all
throughout his life. For reasons he could never wholly understand, he had become, to a large
extent, yesterday's man - and not only in Venice. From 1740 to 1741 we lose sight of him
altogether. In June of the latter year we find him in Vienna, though no-one knows what drew him
there, or from where. So far from being welcomed by the emperor, he now took lodgings in the
house of a saddler's widow. The fortune he had earned was gone, a casualty of extravagant
spending and a tragic lack of prudence. Alone in a city far from home, he died, penniless, on
Thursday the 27th of July J 741 and was buried the next day in the hospital cemetery. There were
no mourners.
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The Place and Importance of the Work in its Own Time and in Ours 3
In assessing their influence, it's hard to separate these particular four concertos from many of
their numerous siblings (Vivaldi's colossal concerto output - 500-plus - includes more than 230
for his own instrument, the violin), but they were certainly the best known. Such was Vivaldi's
influence in his lifetime that many prominent composers, Italian and otherwise, saw fit to modify
their own style along Vivaldian lines. Among other innovations he was the first composer to
make extensive use of so-called 'ritornello form', especially in fast movements. This involves one
main orchestral 'refrain' which recurs in various guises, and in varying lengths, throughout the
movement, alternating with freer 'thematic' episodes in which the soloist predominates. In
Vivaldi's concertos, the musical material of the ritornello may also play a part in the 'solo'
episodes, just as there may be soloistic incursions into the main ritornello theme . It was also
Vivaldi who standardised the three-movement, fast-slow-fast pattern, which has remained the
norm for concertos ever since. The same applies to the interpolation of a solo cadenza [see
Glossary]
T71e Four Seasons aren't by any means unusual in Vivaldi's output for being in some degree
programmatic. Many of his concertos have descriptive titles, backed up by varying degrees of
illustrative music. And some titles are actually applied to two or more different concertos: there
are four distinct works called La tempesta di mare ('Storm at Sea'), two called La notte and so
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on.
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But The Four Seasons are unique in the extent and specificity of their 'narrative' content, plainly
set out in the descriptive sonnets which head each one. Whether these were written before or
after the music we can't be sure, nor do we know who wrote them (though there's good reason to
believe it was Vivaldi himself, whose literary talent was clearly no match for his musical genius).
If the four concertos have a unifying 'theme', it would appear to be the relationship between
humanity and nature -with nature easily keeping the upper hand (not a popular viewpoint at the
time despite the evidence on every side). In both character and outlook, The Four Seasons can
reasonably be seen as the bedrock of a musical tradition which stretched well into the 19th
century, taking in along the way Telemann's cantata Die Tageszeiten ('The Seasons'), Haydn's
oratorio of the same name, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Berlioz's Symphonie fantaslique,
Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, Glazunov's ballet The Seasons and many more. In Vivaldi's
case, the orchestral ritornello serves as mood-setter and scenic backdrop, while the solo 'episodes'
play out the changing scenes in front.
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The Work's Reception in It's Own Time and Ours 4
All in all, The Four Seasons was a hit from the start. Mostly, the reasons were musical, but one
shouldn't under-estimate the power of a name. If they had been billed merely as 'four concertos,
op.8', who knows how different their reception might have been? [It's no accident that, with few
exceptions, the most popular symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
Schumann and many more are the ones with nicknames: 'Drum-roll', 'Military', 'Surprise',
'London', (Haydn); the 'Prague', 'Paris' and 'Jupiter' (Mozart); the 'Eroica', 'Pastoral' and
'Choral' (Beethoven); the 'Reformation', 'Scottish' and 'Italian' (Mendelssohn) and so forth.]
In Vivaldi's lifetime, as in ours, The Four Seasons was unquestionably his most popular work
- its fetching title supplemented by a 'programme' which provides a guide to the illustrative
nature of the music, which abounds in thunderstorms, distraught peasants, drunken revellers,
baying dogs, icy blasts, snow flurries, sleeping goat-herds, twittering birds, trudgers on
frozen lakes and so on. Ingenious asVivaldi's 'pictorial' devices are, though, it's on purely musical
merits that this remarkable quartet of concertos has won its place in the Vivaldian sun. Most of its
many millions of listeners are probably quite unaware of the work's programmatic content,
beyond such obvious imitative devices as emulated birdsong.
For all the work's popularity in his lifetime, however, there were those who disparaged
Vivaldi's stature as a composer, while recognising his sovereignty as a virtuoso performer. A
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number of eminent musicians lamented the 'mediocrity' of his music as a whole, citing, among
other things, his 'routine' use of 'outworn formulas', especially the 'sequence''[see Glossary] and
the indiscriminate use of 'echo' effects. Drawing on the title of the collection from which The
Four Seasons comes (II cimento dell'armonia a dell'inventione - 'The Trial of Harmony and
Invention'), the English composer Charles Avison dismissed it as 'equally defective in various
harmony and true invention', thus sweeping aside the very notion of Vivaldi's conspicuous
originality. Another Englishman, William Hayes, was more charitable, attributing Vivaldi's
creative deficiencies to his 'having too much mercury in his constitution'. But dissent was in no
way confined to his lifetime. In the last third of the 20th century, the eminent musician and critic
Hans Keller refused even to acknowledge Vivaldi as a composer, much less a great one (!).
The fortunes of The Four Seasons have naturally followed Vivaldi's own. During most of the
19th century, it was hardly known at all, even by violinists. And even in the first half of the 20th,
when Vivaldi scholarship was making great strides, there was nothing to anticipate its record
breaking popularity in the second. In the Fifth Edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, published in 1954, Vivaldi rates a mere four pages, and the only mention of The Four
Seasons is in the Catalogue of Works, where its prominence is no greater than any of Vivaldi's
other 'named' concertos. A quarter century later, in 'The New Grove', he is allotted nine pages,
an accurate reflection of his ever-increasing popularity - or to put it more accurately, the ever
increasing popularity of The Four Seasons in particular. For many, he effectively remains a one
work composer (an ironic fate for the most prolific concerto composer in history), and his most
famous work has been arranged for everything from an ocarina quintet to the most sophisticated
synthesizer. By the time the 'New Grove' was published it was clear that the Vivaldi bandwagon,
driven by The Four Seasons, was unstoppable. But who could have guessed at the momentum it
was still to achieve? In 1980, there were 24 recorded versions of the Seasons in the catalogue.
Twenty years on, it was close to 90! If and when it hits l00, it would seem safe to assume that
saturation point must at least be on the horizon.
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Essay: Concerto and Contrast 5
Perhaps the single most important element in music, from the most primitive and ancient to the
most recent and sophisticated is contrast: of pitch, of rhythm, of mass. The single most
fundamental principle of musical organisation is the 'call-and-response' alternation of the one
voice and the many, as in the worksongs and rituals of virtually every culture in history, from the
African plains to the cathedrals of Europe. It reaches its highest development in the instrumental
concertos of the 18th and 19th centuries, where the alternation is between soloist and orchestra.
This, in turn, developed from the operatic arias of the 17th century and their increasingly
sophisticated descendants in the 18th. In the earliest instrumental concertos, the contrast was
simply one of mass - a solo instrument or small group of instruments alternating with the larger
forces of an orchestra, however slight. The element of competition, however (one of the foremost
characteristics of most 19th-century concertos), was almost entirely absent, especially when the
work was restricted to a single family of instruments, as in the string concertos of Corelli, Vivaldi
and Bach. Obviously the contrast is always greater when the solo (or solo group, as in the
concerto grosso - Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, for instance), is different in kind from those of
the orchestra, as in all concertos for wind, brass or keyboard and strings. In the case of the
operatic aria, the difference between solo and orchestra is further emphasized not only by the
more immediate and natural medium of th living human voice but through the use of language.
And this introduces a new element which lies at the heart, the psychological heart, of the entire
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concerto principle as we now know it: the ultimate contrast relies neither on volume nor on tone
colour but on the ability to command the listener's attention, to seize (and to hold) the limelight.
With the advent of the so-called 'classical' era (roughly 1750- 1830), a new and quite different
form of contrast became central not only to the concerto but to European music in general: the
contrast of opposing keys which was to become the bedrock of the whole classical ·sonata ideal'.
It's now not just instruments or themes that vie with one another but whole harmonic regions,
with their own 'rival' centres of tonal gravity. There is no aspect of music more resistant to verbal
explanation (let alone concise verbal explanation) than the phenomenon of key, or 'tonality' to
give it it's formal name, and this isn't the place to tempt fate on that front [but see Glossary]. It
is something, however, which can far more easily be heard (felt, sensed) than described.
Nowhere is this more awesomely or concisely demonstrated than at the very opening of
Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, which tells you more about tonality in half a minute than a
dozen dictionaries will in half an hour.
Beyond all these rather technical-sounding, 'biological' contrasts, however, lies a realm
without which they would all be next to meaningless. Despite the attempts of a relatively few
'intellectual' composers of the early and mid 20th century to 'objectify' it, music remains what it
has always been and always will be: a symbolic reflection of human emotions, of the human
spirit, and the ultimate universality of our most fundamental experiences. Not the least important
contrasts in the world of the concerto are those of character, mood, sensuality and spiritual
energy. In this sense the form and concept of the concerto as we have come to know it represent
a Utopian ideal, a stylized drama in which the strivings, yearnings and conflicts of spiritual
experience achieve a harmonious resolution seldom granted to us in our daily lives.
8.5 18
The Four Seasons: Track List 6
CD 1: FIRST CONCERTO: SPRING

[1] Introduction; Opening, upward-pointing figure 1:33
[2l Answering, downward figure completes the phrase 0:22
[a] Beginning of dialogue 0:25
The nature of musical conversation; repetition; 'echo' effect 1:26
[£ Upward pointing to one 'target' note 0:40
1ft] 'Answer' points to two, downward notes ('And here is a prong with two hooks') 0:11
IZ) Same idea repeated 3 times 0:19
[ffl The first Solo section: birdsong from three soloists, not one 1:53
Repeat of 'two-pronged' theme in orchestra 0:22
lffi] Orchestra depicts murmuring stream, but still there's no real melody 0:51
!fl] Further illustrative 'water studies' 0:32
1121 Orchestra erupts into thunderstorm 0:27
Orchestral thunder, virtuosic 'lightning' from soloist - but still no 'tune' 0:54
[Ml Soloistic 'birds' return to the air 0:41
Variant of opening theme, with 'argument' between two notes, one high, one low 0:25
11§1 Cue to First Movement 0:20
Im First Movement (complete) 3:29
8.558028-29 19
l1BJ Scene setting and Main Theme of Second Movement 1:56

Analytical comment and Main Theme again 0:57
12:0] Main Theme varied 0:41
1211 Further variation, tracing slow, descending scale-steps 0:43
[211 Analytical discussion of 'pace' and 'tempo'; further variant of main theme 2:51
Vivaldi springs a surprise, reversing direction and heightening tension 0:44
Analytical cue to Second Movement 0:44
Second Movement (complete) 2:35
Undercover 'bagpipes' initiate the finale 1:05
In] Second part of Main Theme: new notes, same rhythm 0:18
12BJ An 'echo' with a difference 0:23
Reminder of 'echoed' phrase in its original form 0:12
Surprise variant provides springboard into new descending four-note pattern 0:19
Unexpected, 'flowing' entrance of soloist 0:36
[l2I The use of 'sequence' in first extended solo 1:21
Vivaldi prepares expectation ... 0:19
...and frustrates it by bringing in a new theme, using his four-note 'motto' 1:07
Violins accompanied by flowing 'commentary' in lower strings 0:34
Soloist returns with new variant 0:36
Pace slows as violins trace another four-note scalewise descent 0:24
The peasants return with the main theme, which turns unexpectedly downward
0:47 Intensification as harmonies change under broad, descending four-note
'motto' 0:37 Mini-earthquake transformed into harmonic landslide 0:46
Critical mood-change in soloist's lonely soliloquy 0:42
Cueto restoration of main theme in its entirety as the movement ends. 0:22
Third Movement (complete) 4:15
20 8.558028-29
SECOND CONCERTO: 'SUMMER'

Scene setting and opening of First Movement 0:34
Expanded groups of answering phrase 0:24
Upper and lower strings alternately succumb to lethargy 0:49
IIl] As in 'Spring', soloist enters with birdsong 0:34
] Orchestra hijacks soloist's material 0:40
Soloist returns, first as turtle-dove, then as goldfinch 0:50
[5g] Gentle breezes give way to North Wind 1:03
The storm subsides; soloist enters as weeping peasant boy 1:00
Movement ends as storm returns 0:17
15:31 First Movement (complete) 5:20
1M] Second movement opens with extreme contrasts 1:34
15§] Stormy Weather; thunder 0:37
Ifill Lightning from upper strings 0:22
More lightning: 'heat' lightning from violins, 'fork' lightning from violas 0:24
Torrential rain, depicted by entire orchestra 0:46
1M] Deferred entry of solo violin, in virtuoso vein 0:54
Ifill Peasant's failing resolve as violin spirals down 0:21
Nature triumphant; soloist draws on orchestra's 'rain' music 1:35
The peasant's capitulation 0:23
1M] Third Movement (complete) 3:03
8.558028-29 21
CD 2: THIRD CONCERTO: 'AUTUMN

[I] Repetitiousness and folk music; the movement's opening 1:17
12] Secondary theme, a closely related development of the first 0:28
@] Solo entry restates the opening theme, 'double-stopping' 1:05
Unexpectedly, a new theme where a repeat might be expected 0:36
The soloist as 'drunkard' 0:45
[§] Further violinistic slips and slides 0:15
[Z] Orchestra re-enters with main theme, but is interrupted by the drunkard 0:18
[ffl Other drunks join in 'dialogue' with the orchestra 1:01
The orchestral peasants continue their dancing, but things have changed 0:57
lffi Enter another drunk, courtesy of the virtuoso soloist 0:40
[fl] The dance breaks up 0:38
The drunkard interrupts again, then falls asleep, breathing heavily 0:56
Conversation amongst the sober peasants leads to their final dance 0:24
1M] First Movement (complete) 4:46
1151 Scene-setting for Second Movement 1:08
11§1 Second Movement (complete) 2:45
l1ZI Similarities between the Third Movement and the First 1:06
lffi] Expectation and surprise: Vivaldi tacks on one bar too many 0:27
1ml A case of predictable unpredictability: novelty and repetition 0:36
12.Ql Soloist's double-stopping depicts hunting horns 0:34
l2ll Orchestra yields to unexpected display of virtuosity by soloist 0:38
12:21 Soloist suddenly takes the part of the fleeing beast 0:25
Symmetrical parallels with First Movement: 'beast' / 'drunkard' etc. 0:47
Death of the quarry, end of the movement 0:17
Third Movement (complete) 3:13
22 8.558028-29
FOURTH CONCERTO: 'WINTER'

Orchestral strings enter, part by part; soloist depicts the biting wind 1:24
lnJ Wind subsides and returns, tormenting the trudgers through the snow 0:53
Soloist depicts snow flurries 0:27
Soloist's flurries interrupted by six blasts of orchestral wind 0:32
Teeth chattering, and with stamping feet, the travellers finally reach their goal 1:54
ru] Cue to First Movement as a whole 0:11
@21 First Movement (complete) 3:24
Soloist's 'aria' accompanied by pizzicato 'raindrops' 0:37
A sequence of simple scales, accompanied by opening rhythm 0:33
Two scalewise ideas for the price of one: foreground and background 0:52
New, rising scale-pattern unfurled with ever-greater breadth 0:36
In] The pace increases eight-fold in concluding downwards scale 0:36
Against an unvarying tempo, the pace is repeatedly varied 1:03
Foreground / Background 0:34
Detailed discussion of foreground/background perceptions; analogies with speech 2:14
Scene-setting; soloist begins for the first time 0:47
Soloist rises progressively, in sequence, decoratively outlining chord of the home key 0:26
First orchestral section; pace is halved; the undermining onset of chromaticism 0:47
The walkers lose their balance and stylishly fall down 0:22
Soloist returns as the original solitary walker and strides away from the others 0:23
One tempo, two rates of speed: fast for the soloist, slow for the orchestra 1:51
Orchestra evokes the warm winds of the Sirocco 0:36
Answering blast from the Borea, the cold wind of the north; struggle for supremacy 1:07
Cue to final movement 0:23
[fill Third Movement (complete) 3:08
23 8.55
802
8.5 24
Analysis 7
CD 1: The Four Seasons: Spring
Spring has come and with it gaiety,
The birds salute it with joyous song,
And the brooks, caressed by Zephyr's breath,
Flow meanwhile with sweet murmurings:
The sky is covered with dark clouds,

Announced by lightning and thunder.
But when they are silenced, the little birds
Return to fill the air with their song:
Then does the meadow, in full flower,

Ripple with its leafy plants.
The goat-herd dozes, guarded by his faithful dog.
Rejoicing in the pastoral bagpipes,

Nymphs and Shepherds dance, in love,
Their faces glowing with Springtime's brilliance.
8.558028-29 25
First Movement: Allegro

[I] One of the hardiest of all cliches where music is concerned is the claim that Vivaldi didn't
write hundreds of concertos (which he did, by the way), but one concerto hundreds of times.
Well, to coin a phrase, it ain't true. And in The Four Seasons he didn't write the same concerto
even four times. To refute this hackneyed old charge, and because it gives valuable insight into
exactly how composition works, I've chosen here to put the first concerto, 'Spring', under a
particularly strong microscope. This means there's going to be a lot of detail - more than anyone
could fairly be expected to remember - so you'll have to have your powers of concentration out in
force. But unlike radio, you can play this disc any number of times, so don't worry if some things
pass you by first time around. And remember, too, that it's all in the booklet as well.
For most of us, I think, the first and most instantly captivating feature of the opening is its
strong, confident, easily remembered rhythm. The second thing that may strike us is the amount
of repetition in it. The very first phrase (and it's a short one) is immediately repeated, virtually
note for note [MUSIC].
[2l This is then followed by a different but closely related 'answer', whose main similarity to the
opening flourish is its rhythm, this time given a slightly more martial, march-like character. And
where the general drift of the opening 'motto' is upwards, this answering 'variation' is generally
downwards [MUSIC].
More importantly, though, it has a sense of finality about it (relatively speaking, of course)
which seems to turn the opening 'statement' retrospectively into a question. So right away, before
the first phrase of the piece is even over, we have the beginnings of a dialogue [MUSIC].
What follows, here as in any concerto, is a chain of questions, hypotheses and answers
whose interrelationships are the very essence not only of concerto-writing but of western
music as a whole. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that in the European tradition, music
and conversation are one and the same. And as in any conversation, memory is the first
requirement. If you can't remember what somebody said, you can't answer, confirm or
26 8.558028-29
question it. No
8.558028-29 27
composer in history used more ink than Vivaldi to make sure his tunes, themes, harmonies and
so on were remembered. If you were to knock out every bar in a Vivaldi work that was an exact
or near-exact repetition of something heard earlier, many, perhaps even most of his scores would
shrink by fifty per cent at least. In this concerto, two thirds of his opening gambit are the same.
Only the last third is new.
And then he gives us exactly the same music again - immediately - but varies it by the simple
device of giving it out softy (echo effects are among Vivaldi's hardiest standbys) [MUSIC].
This may be bargain-basement conversation, but when the material is good, who's to
complain? And throughout these four concertos, the material is good - good enough to have
made The Four Seasons just possibly the most popular 'classical' work ever penned.
After the 'echo' effect, and a brief pause for emphasis, Vivaldi introduces a new theme, which
is actually just a variation of the first. And it's mostly the rhythm that makes it feel that way. But
where the first phrase made a point (almost literally) of one note [MUSIC]
[§] ... this one emphasizes two, with a new bounce and swing to the music, as if to say "And
here is a prong with two hooks") [MUSIC].
[Z] Not only that, it now makes its point three times, before allowing the phrase to come to a
natural close, bringing us back, full circle, to the beginning [MUSIC].
[BJ And just in case we missed the point, Vivaldi gives us the whole phrase again, including the
'echo' effect. Of his twelve opening bars, only four contain new music. He can now bring in his
soloist, confident that we won't forget the opening theme when he brings it back.
Two things are especially striking about this new, 'solo' section. The first is that there's no new
theme. In fact there's no theme at all (not ifwe equate themes with melody). The soloist comes
in twittering on one note and continues to harp on that note to the exclusion of all others, no
fewer than 21 times. The second surprise is that there appear to be three soloists rather than
one, without a single melody to show between them. And this continues to be true throughout this
first
8.558028-29 27
·solo' section. Even without knowing anything about the illustrative 'programme' which
28 8.558028-29
underlies the music, it's clear that Vivaldi is imitating birdsong- and brilliantly. To begin with, it's
difficult to tell one bird from another, partly because no one player has a monopoly on any one
'song'. The calls are passed around from one violinist to another, so that it's quite impossible to
tell which one is the 'soloist' [MUSIC].
[91 When the orchestra returns, it's with the second strain of the opening theme, the 'hook with
two prongs'. The effect is rather like a protest, a reminder that this is a concerto and that
concertos need themes [MUSIC].
!ffi But the orchestra too now becomes pictorial. There's an abrupt change of mood, style and
texture, as the orchestra describes the rippling murmurs of a stream. Once again, the tone painting
is magically done, but once again there's virtually no melody. And once again, repetition plays a
key role, especially in the lower-toned violas and cellos, who provide the stream-bed, as it were,
harping on one single, unchanging pitch sixteen times in a row before moving to another and
doing the same [MUSIC].
Ill] Now, the illustrative 'murmuring' figuration is passed to the cellos, and the violins play
long, sustained notes, outlining a slow succession of chords which suggest that the babbling
brook has opened out into a broader stretch, with little surface movement, but with entrancing
patterns of light, reflected from the stones below [MUSIC].
[2] Again the imagery is entrancing, but there's almost nothing in the way of melody (nor any
sign of a soloist), prompting another call to arms from the 'two-pronged hook' theme. But to no
avail. A thunderstorm breaks out, punctuated by two streaks of lightning (reversing nature by
striking upwards instead of downwards) [MUSIC].
Only after the next two thundery rumbles in the orchestra does the soloist emerge for the
first time unaccompanied, and this when the movement is already half over. But still there's no
melody in sight. However, the brilliant figuration of the solo violin (which provides a different
sort of lightning) adds a wonderfully colourful touch of excitement here, alternating with what at
first appear to be diminishing outbreaks of thunder in the orchestra [MUSIC].
8.558028-29 29
The two-pronged hook theme now tries for a third time to goad the soloist into a proper
theme, but again to no avail. The thunder clouds dispersed, birds now return to the air - but new
ones this time, and with them a new mood. Led by the soloist at first, they soon converse as
equals, but now with a slightly eerie undertone [MUSIC].
:51 The orchestra returns with a new, slight variant of the opening ritornello theme, which
quickly develops into an argument between two notes: an alternation of a short rising figure,
'pointing' to the upper note, answered by a downward-pointing one which is its exact reversal
[MUSIC].
This gives way to the longest solo yet, in which the violin is accompanied only by a
discreet bass line, taken by the cello and double-bass. The movement ends with the first complete
restatement (including the 'echo' effect) of the 'two-pronged hook' theme. Put it all together, and
it sounds like this:
[1Zl FIRST MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO
30 8.558028-29
Second Movement: Largo

If the solo violin spent most of the first movement airborne, doing double duty as birds and
lightning, its role in the slow movement is thoroughly down-to-earth. Far removed from poetic
analogy, it now takes the part of a slumbering goatherd. But we begin with the gentle murmurs
of a May breeze, and the persistent barking of a dog. Here, though, the realism of the first
movement yields to the most stylized representation (despite Vivaldi's instruction to the violas to
play "very loudly throughout, and raspingly"). Few conductors have even considered following
his advice, just as few violinists can serious!¥ have contemplated a 'snoring' evocation of the
goatherd's slumbers. Instead we have some of the most beautiful and poignant music Vivaldi
ever wrote. While the violins convey the rustling of leaves and grasses, with a steady, lilting,
'dotted' rhythm, the violas represent the dog, with an almost eerily regular 'bow Wow ' rhythm,
whose effect is more like a tolling bell than a barking hound. And the goatherd's slow, even
breathing is depicted by the solo violin, whose bittersweet melody, set against the whispering
grasses and the melancholy baying of the dog, suggests the loneliness of a man unrequitedly in
love [MUSIC].
And here Vivaldi departs from the almost relentless repetitions which are such a feature of
the first movement. The dreaming goatherd's tune - a melody in its truest sense - is unfurled with
a sense of continuous development, the downward drift of its first phrase being 'answered' by a
rising variation of it in the second. And it might not be too fanciful to interpret the first, passive,
phrase as the breathing out, and the second, more active phrase, as the breathing in of the
sleeping goatherd. [MUSIC]
l2Qi As the next section begins, we seem already to be back at square one, with a literal reprise
of the opening. But in this case, Vivaldi the notorious repeater has other ideas. The solo violin
starts with the same falling figure we began with, but then departs from the opening idea by rising
to a new high note, which is held, unchanging, for more than a bar at a time [MUSIC].
[21] And this pattern - this variation of the original theme - is then repeated twice, in sequence,
8.558028-29 31
tracing a slow descending pattern of scale steps, in this case the high, long notes [MUSIC].
[n] But it's not just the tune which is different here. Vivaldi compresses the opening material,
leaving three bars out, and increases the rate and the pattern of harmonic change. The tempo
hasn't changed - the underlying pulse is still the same, yet the pace seems somehow to have
quickened, the feeling of movement has increased. Why? How?
Well here we come to one of the most important and subtle distinctions in music: the
difference between pace and tempo. Tempo, the actual note-to-note speed of the music - is
established by the main pulse of a piece, and like the heartbeat, this is something more or less
constant. Pace, on the other hand, is the impression of speed - which takes us into the realms of
psychology. "How time flies," we say, "when you're enjoying yourself." And when we're bored,
we complain that "time drags"; "the minutes felt like hours". But none of this is a function of the
clock. A minute is a minute is a minute; an hour is an hour- not a second more, not a second less.
The impression of speed in music is determined, basically, by the rate of change. It may be
simply a matter of harmony: the more harmonies or chords you have within a certain space of
time, the faster the movement will feel. If there's only one harmony or chord per bar, the
impression of movement will be slower.
And the same applies to melody. If there are only two main notes within a given space, the
impression of movement is obviously slower than when there are four main notes.
So back to Vivaldi. And we pick up where we left off, with a beautiful example of this
contrast between tempo and pace. While the pace of the solo violin is broadened, the pace of the
accompanying harmony-the windswept grasses- increases to the rate of one harmony per bar (a
rate three times faster than in the opening section). And this combination, with its fleeting flashes
of tension between soloist and orchestra, gives the whole passage a feeling of emotional depth
which rises to the level of genuine pathos [MUSIC]:
But the highpoint of the movement., the moment of greatest surprise, is still to come. Just
when we think we're into a reprise of that beautiful sequence of long, descending scale-steps,
32 8.558028-29
Vivaldi reverses the direction, moving up- not down, as expected-and to a note of high harmonic
tension. [MUSIC].
It's as though the slumbering man awakens briefly, stretches, and subsides into sleep again,
and to the poignant melancholy of his lovelorn dream. And with tbe echo of that falling-back to
sleep (and the still-persisting barking of the melancholy dog), Vivaldi lays the movement gently
to rest. Only with the very last note of the whole movement does the dog himself appear at last to
fall asleep. It's some measure, incidentally, of Vivaldi's success as a tone-painter that we may
never have noticed the complete absence of cellos and double-bass from beginning to end of this
entrancing scene, which we'll hear now in its entirety.
SECOND MOVEMENT: LARGO E PIANISSIMO
In the rustic dance of the finale, Vivaldi, taking his cue from the accompanying sonnet,
draws on one of the most famous and most easily imitated features of folk music in many parts of
the world: the distinctive sound of the bagpipes (their long, sustained 'drone' bass and the catchy
12/8 metre are hallmarks of Italian bagpipe tunes in particular. He also underlines the point by
asking the violins to play with mutes, imitating the actual tone of the bagpipes). And now Vivaldi
the inveterate repeater is back in full cry. As in the first movement, the second bar duplicates the
first, and the third is a variant of it, and then we get the whole thing again, 'echo' style [MUSIC].
[n] The actual notes, the melodic shapes, in the answering phrase are new, but the rhythm is
almost a carbon copy of the previous phrase, and here too there's a built-in repeat [MUSIC].
Given what we've just heard, the next strain, also based entirely on the main theme's
swinging 'dotted' rhythm, looks like being another straightforward echo effect, but just at the end
of the 'echo', Vivaldi slips in a tiny surprise. Instead of moving downwards, as he did the first
time, [MUSIC],
... he changes tack at the last minute. Just when we may be expecting the 'dotted' tune to
come to rest- as it does in Version 1 [MUSIC],
... he turns upwards, using it as a springboard into a new idea: four long, evenly spaced,
32 8.558028-29
descending notes, which again get the echo treatment [MUSIC].

[3] ] This four note descending figure turns out to be something almost like a motto in
this movement, turning up repeatedly, in various guises, as we'll hear.
The change of pace introduced by this figure plays an important role, paving the way for the
somewhat unexpected entry of the soloist, whose theme is also even and flowing, quite unlike the
jaunty dance of the peasant bagpipers [MUSIC].
21 And it's only now, in the last movement, that the soloist proves fully worthy of the name.
Accompanied only by a bass line and some chords from the harpsichord, the violin takes to the
air like a lark ascending. For the first time, the orchestral violins and violas fall silent, leaving the
soloist free to develop this new, more intimately expressive strand.
Well by now it should come as no surprise that nine times out of ten, in Vivaldi's case,
development means repetition - not mainly through such literal devices as the echo effect (though
that's how he starts out here), but rather through the use of the so-called sequence, in which the
same melodic figure is repeated in a succession of different pitches. Mechanical though this may
sound in theory, it can work very beautifully in effect, with each new link in the chain adding new
shadings of expression. [MUSIC].
1With the return of the bagpipers with the main theme, we naturally expect that it will get its
statutory 'echoing' repeat. Which is exactly what Vivaldi wants us to think [MUSIC].
[Mj A1J the more effective, then, not only to frustrate our expectations, but to bring in what
seems to be an entirely new theme, very different from anything we've heard up till now: a broad,
descending sequence of rising pairs, each of which forms a single entity. While we actually hear
seven notes, the impression is rather of four bold, expressive brushstrokes - this being the second
appearance of that four-note 'motto' figure we had earlier. But here it takes on a special
poignancy (deepening the prevailing mood for a moment) through the harmonic clashes caused
by the 'suspensions' in the viola part [these are notes of one harmony which are held, or
'suspended', after the other voices have moved on]. It's perhaps the most sheerly beautiful effect
8.558028-29 33
in the whole movement, which makes its 'echo' repetition all the more welcome [MUSIC].
We now get a brief conversation between the orchestral violins and the lower strings, based
on the opening theme but this time without the jaunty, dance-like rhythm. When the violins move
on, though, following the same general pattern as at the opening, the cellos and basses continue
a kind of running commentary with their more continuous and flowing rhythm [MUSIC].
With the end of this little exchange, the soloist returns, but without any show of virtuosity.
After a 'closing ofr of the last section, the violin tries out a new variant, introduced by an
upward running scale figure which is then followed by fragments of the 'flowing' rhythm from the
orchestra's most recent 'discussion' [MUSIC].
@1] The pace now slows, with the violins repeating a descending, four-note, scale-like theme,
based on the similar, but shorter figure which first introduced the soloist [MUSIC].
This whole section has a kind of melancholy poignancy, more similar to the draining heat
of summer sunshine than redolent of Spring. One can almost feel the heat and the humidity and
the stillness.
After the soloist brings this midday lull to an end, the peasants return, energy restored, with
the jaunty main theme. But their briskness and energy take an unexpected, downward turn, as
the theme seems to sink into a different key, and to continue sinking, in a falling sequence of
fragments from the opening tune [MUSIC].
The harmonic ground seems to be shifting beneath our feet. And there's a very different
feeling when that beautiful, broad 'motto' theme returns, now with still broader brushstrokes
(each twice as long as the original). And in the lower strings, the continuous rhythmic pattern
which we felt as flowing when we first heard it, is now heaving and restless, almost like a mini
earthquake [MUSIC].
What we have here is the expressive climax not only of this movement but of the whole
concerto. Tension is at its height, the sense of stability is undermined, the harmony is weakened,
festivity is replaced by emotion, and jaunty self-confidence by doubt. The mini-earthquake we
34 8.558028-29
Classics Explained; Vivaldi TT,e Four Seasons
felt
8.558028-29 35
earlier is now followed by a harmonic landslide. The heaving angularity in the cellos and basses is
supplanted by a closely-spaced descent in which the sense of key, our sense of home ground, is
temporarily lost [MUSIC].
Rhythmically, too, the tension is heightened in a climactic syncopation. Small wonder that
when the soloist returns, the mood is greatly changed. Like a dazed boxer, the soloist seems to be
hanging on the ropes. The peasant dance is quite forgotten. Uncomplicated certainty gives way
to a lonely, questioning soliloquy [MUSIC].
But slowly, the violin finds its figurative feet again, the rhythm takes on a new energy, the
soloist unassumingly returns us to the home key, and the orchestra brings the movement to a
close with the first complete restatement of the main theme since the beginning. So Jet's go back
to the beginning and put this musical Humpty-Dumpty together again
THIRD MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO
DUR: 4.15
36 8.558028-29
Classics Explained; Vivaldi TT,e Four Seasons
The Four Seasons: Summer

Under the heavy season of a burning sun,
Man languishes, his herd wilts, the pine is parched
The cuckoo finds its voice, and chiming in with it
The turtle-dove, the goldfinch.
Zephyr breathes gently but, contested,

The North-wind appears nearby and suddenly:
The shepherd sobs because, uncertain,
He fears the wild squall and its effects:
His weary limbs have no repose, goaded by

His fear of lightning and wild thunder;
While gnats and flies in furious swarms surround him.
Alas, his fears prove all too grounded,

Thunder and lightning split the Heavens, and hail-stones
Slice the top of the corn and other grain.
8.558028-29 37
First Movement: Allegro non molto/Allegro

From the outset of the Second Concerto, the atmosphere is extraordinarily vivid, depicting
the oppressive heat of a Mediterranean summer's day. The plaintive sighs of the violins at
the opening, separated by silences which suggest that even the intake of breath is a tiring
exertion, give no hint of the explosive energy that lies ahead [MUSIC].
In the expanded groups of the answering phrase, the feeling is rather of yawns and a weary
stretching of limbs [MUSIC].
Even this minimal activity, though, seems excessive. The upward reaching of outstretched
arms gives way to an unprotesting lethargy. Everything now is passive, as upper and lower
strings alternately succumb to the heat in a series of downward-drifting capitulations [MUSIC].
But if humanity wilts on the ground, the dwellers in trees put up a spirited resistance, as the
soloist bursts onto the scene in an unexpected and virtuosic evocation of birdsong . Here
everything is twittering, tluttering and energetic, with the unmistakable sound of the cuckoo set
against the more indeterminate, almost hiccuping clucking of the cellos [MUSIC].
Having been side-lined throughout this extended solo, the orchestra bursts back in, acting
on the old slogan "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em") and hijacks the violin's virtuosic material -
an unusual occurrence in any concerto - and then we return to the enervating heat of the
opening [MUSIC].
In an abrupt change of mood, the soloist returns, first in the guise of a turtle-dove, clashing
discordantly with the accompanying cellos, and then of a goldfinch, whose trills and high-pitched
alternating notes herald yet another mood-change [MUSIC].
The !lowing, soothing rhythm of Vivaldi's 'gentle breezes' soon gives way to a remarkable
passage in which ominous, whispered presentiments lead to the sudden, chilling arrival of the
North Wind- one of Vivaldi's most exciting and original inspirations [MUSIC].
[5] Then, as suddenly as it arrived, the storm subsides. We return briefly to the unsettling
torpor of the movement's opening, before the soloist returns in the role of a weeping peasant boy
8.558028-29 37
[MUSIC].
In a series of descending scale passages, harking back to the passive capitulations of the
opening, the tension builds until the North Wind can wait no longer, and the movement ends in
a storm whose turbulence makes the earlier squall seem like a vicar's tea party. But it's best heard
in its proper context, so here's the movement as a whole.
FIRST MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO NON MOLTO
DUR: 5.20
Second Movement: Adagio

[Ml The slow movement is really more of an interlude than a fully-fledged movement, and
with its sudden alternations of extreme contrasts, it's one of Vivaldi's most original and unsettling
studies in mood and tone painting. Above the persistent, worrying buzzing of flies and wasps,
represented by the upper strings, the soloist starts to unfurl what promises to be an extensive,
melancholy aria. But four times over, the violin's outpourings are interrupted by the ominous
rumble of thunder, before the storm finally breaks in the astonishing, even fearsome finale
[MUSIC].
And now here's the movement entire, in all of two and half minutes:
Second Movement: Adagio-Presto
DUR: 2.33
Third Movement: Presto

It seems hardly necessary for Vivaldi to have headed the third movement "Summer's
violent weather". Amongst musical storms it ranks with the best. With its agitated repeated notes
in all the parts, the air fairly bristles with electricity. First comes the thunder, and the silence
before its immediate, sequential repetition only adds to its power [MUSIC].
And hard on the heels of the thunder comes the lightning, in a series of driving, downward
38 8.558028-29
scales from the upper strings [MUSIC].

As the storm gathers force, the lightning diversifies. The sky is lit up by flashing bursts
of 'heat' lightning (these in rising scales from the upper strings), while the violas hurl bolts of
fork lightning in a series of downward arpeggios. [MUSIC].
The lightning now subsides, only to make way for the torrential rain, depicted by the whole
orchestra in a series of driving arpeggios in the upper strings, over the relentless repeated notes
of the cellos and basses. The downpour grows and diminishes in force, and though the rate of
harmonic change is slow (only one harmony per bar), the sense of energy never flags. Quite the
opposite. This is truly hair-raising stuff [MUSIC].
] In all the drama of this natural ferocity we almost forget that this is a concerto, and that we
haven't as yet heard a note from the soloist. What chance, after all, has a solitary fiddle against all
this tumult? But after three upward-rushing scales from the orchestral violins, the rain suddenly
stops, and as the soloist enters to fill the void, the tension is only heightened, with the greatest
display of virtuosity we've had from the violin so far. And given the programmatic character of
the music it wouldn't be in the least far-fetched to see the soloist in the role of the solitary
peasant, shaking his fist defiantly at the heavens [MUSIC].
Ifill But his resolve fails him. In a long, quivering, scalewise descent (recalling the turbulent
tremors of the storm itself), he seems to accept that his protests are in vain [56].
Despite the silence of the orchestra during this descent into impotence, there's no sense
here that the storm has passed by. This is only a lull. As the cellos and basses creep in under the
soloist's evidently dwindling resolve - and in the extensive orchestral section that follows - there's
a sense that while the storm may not have spent its force, it has at least subsided. The thunder
may still rumble in the downward scales of lower strings, but the lightning has diminished and the
storm seems to be moving on. There's something bordering on jollity, almost celebration, in
much of this orchestral section, as though Nature rather enjoys her power to subdue the
impenitent peasant.
8.558028-29 39
When the soloist returns (now more plaintive than defiant), it's to the discreet
accompaniment, in the cellos, of a particular rhythmic figure which recurs again and again in
Vivaldi's music. And now the violin draws on the orchestra's 'rain' music, with its repeated
downward arpeggios, preparing us (and more immediately, the despairing farmer) for the
next cloudburst [MUSIC].
In a brief, lonely solo, over a single, sustained note in the cellos, we can hear the voice of
the peasant, still railing against the elements - only to be mocked by a further engulfing outburst.
Two short so.las remain, before the music of the storm returns to complete the movement, which
we'll hear now in its entirety:
DUR: 3.13
40 8.558028-29
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Sea.<ons
CD 2: The Four Seasons: Autumn

The country-folk celebrate, with dance and song,
The joy of gathering a bountiful harvest.
With Bacchus's liquor, quaffed liberally,
Their joy finishes in slumber.
Each one renounces dance and song

The mild air is pleasant
And the season invites ever increasingly
To savour a sweet slumber.
The hunters at dawn go to the hunt,

With horns and guns and dogs they sally forth,
The beasts flee, their trail is followed.
Already dismay'd and exhausted, from the great noise

Of guns and dogs, threaten'd with wounds,,
They flee, languishing, and die, cowering.
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Sea.<ons
First Movement: Allegro

[j] In 'Autumn', the third concerto, it quickly becomes evident that Vivaldi is playing a
dangerous game, carrying his bent for repetition and echo effects to positively daredevil
extremes. But this is no mere whim. He's evoking the music of the countryside: the songs
and dances of peasants and their families, and repetition is one of the most notable
characteristics of folk music in every part of the world. But to a certain extent, Vivaldi's
repetitiousness here is more apparent than real. Just when we're absolutely sure we know what
he's going to do next, he surprises us and slips in a change, often ve'ry slight, where we least
expect it. His robust, forthright opening idea (whose first two bars are already identical) ends
with a brief silence and is then promptly repeated - but not quite exactly. This time it's both
softer (the predictable 'echo' effect) and at a lower pitch (not so predictable) [MUSIC].
The secondary theme of this opening section is a closely related development of the first,
but already Vivaldi exploits our natural expectation of symmetry by extending the phrase,
slipping in what sounds like one repetition too many, just where he's led us to expect a close
[MUSIC].
Another thing Vivaldi has done here is to shift the rhythmic placement of the theme, so it's
out of sync, so to speak, with the metrical plan he started out with. And then we get the echo
effect again.
The soloist now enters, strongly, and repeats the opening exactly, playing the formerly
separate parts of the orchestral violins as a solo. This is done through the technique known as
'double-stopping', which basically means playing two notes at the same time. Here it produces a
relatively harsh tone, contrasting with the smoother, fuller sound of the orchestra, and
emphasising the fact that these are peasants celebrating, not slick, urban professionals. The
soloist then repeats this, but again, not exactly. The echo effect is there, as we may now be
expecting, but this time without any lowering of pitch [MUSIC].
Now Vivaldi springs a bigger surprise. Everything so far leads us to expect that he'll
complete his repeat of the opening theme. Instead, he gives us a new one, clearly related but
decidedly different. Where before we had a generally downward-moving figure, the soloist now
carries us upward after the exuberant cheer at the start. And this time, following the example of
the opening, the echo is given at a lower pitch [MUSIC].
With the next solo, we meet our first individual reveller, unceremoniously introduced as "a
drunkard". And all the soloist's virtuosity is required to convey the tragi-comic vision of self
important bravado spiked by alcoholic ineptitude. No-one could argue that the musical material
of the drunkard's entrance is even fit to be called a theme. He enters by stumbling down,
laboriously lifts himself up again (each new note is repeated), and then stumbles down again,
even less elegantly than before [MUSIC].
[§] There now follows a sequence of tipsy slips and slides as the drunkard struggles to
negotiate a simple descending scale [MUSIC].
[Z] At this point, the orchestra re-enters in an attempt to restore order, but before it can finish
the first five notes of the main theme, the drunkard interrupts with an ascending fit of inebriated
giggles. [MUSIC].
It soon becomes evident that we're dealing here not just with one drunkard but with several
(Vivaldi even writes the plural into the score: "Ubriachi"). We now hear the soloist in a dialogue,
alternating between slobbering expressions of affection and high-spirited chortles, and
culminating in a brief, uncoordinated attempt to rejoin the dancing [MUSIC].
As the drunks totter off (though not for good), the orchestral peasants continue with their
dancing, but now with a sense of almost grim determination that they won't let the fun be
disturbed by a few undisciplined louts who can't hold their liquor. But the unclouded festivity
and fresh-faced gaiety is gone. The sense of stability which characterised the opening here gives
way to a new fluidity. Almost at once, the music, while never abandoning the dance, sets off on a
search for a new harmonic field, as though to put a greater distance between the dancers and the
8.558028-29 43
drunks. [MUSIC].
DJ But it proves a vain hope. With the re-entry of the soloist it becomes clear that at least one
of the drunks has foiled their plan and is determined to disrupt the proceedings - providing, in the
process, another challenge to the soloist's virtuosity [MUSIC].
IIl] When the orchestra returns, the dancers bravely attempt to ignore this latest interruption,
but this time there's clearly dissension in the ranks, as it were, and the dance breaks up, giving
way to a rather agitated debate among the peasants as to how they should now proceed [MUSIC].
112] This too is interrupted by the drunkard, but the problem is unexpectedly resolved as he falls
suddenly into a deep, alcoholic sleep (we can hear his deep, noisy breathing in the large
downwards 'sighs' of the violin) [MUSIC].
[13] A mere four snores later, the drunkard is plainly out for the count. To his increasingly
quiet breathing (represented by the violin in long sustained notes), conversation breaks out again
amongst the soberest revellers, and soon the dance is resumed, bringing the movement to its
satisfying end [MUSIC]
Well. Stick it altogether and this is what we get:
Ml FIRST MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO
DUR: 4.44
Second Movement: Adagio Motto

:s] The slow middle movement is an extraordinary piece by any standard: a single page,
dedicated to portraying 'Sleeping Drunkards'. All the strings are muted throughout, both to
enhance a veiled, indistinct atmosphere and to highlight the eerie effect of the harpsichord. This
is no easy or refreshing sleep but a deeply troubled one, with hazy images, confused wanderings,
haunting dissonances, harmonic anarchy, irregular and unpredictable phrasings - all in all, a
disturbing scene, and one whose unsettling quality remains or even increases with repeated
hearings. Ironically (for our purposes), to try and 'clarify' its means by dispassionate analysis
44 8.558028-29
would be to betray its intent and impoverish the listener. Those whose experience includes a
familiarity with The Unanswered Question by the 20th century American maverick Charles Ives,
may well wonder whether that similarly haunting masterpiece takes its inspiration from this
movement.
11§] SECOND MOVEMENT: ADAGIO MOLTO
DUR: 2.45
Third Movement: Allegro

[1Zl In the buoyant, dance-like finale (in which the peasants don't play a part), Vivaldi rounds
off the concerto with a symmetry which is no coincidence. The similarities between this and the
first movement are several, and mostly obvious. One is the use of a good, four-square tune for the
main theme, another is the extravagant use of repetitions and echo effects, while still another is
the typically Vivaldian delight in leading us to expect one thing and then giving us something
else. The opening phrase, as in the beginning of the first movement, is almost
exaggeratedly symmetrical, and consists mainly of two notes: in this case, three Fs (one per
bar), going up stepwise at the end, to G. Again like the first movement, this is immediately
repeated - and
treated to the now predictable echo effect [MUSIC].
IIBl The second phrase is almost identical to the first, except that this time it features four
notes, in that descending pattern which we can now recognise as one of Vivaldi's trademarks. But
at the
end of the phrase, he already plays a trick on us by expanding it to five bars rather than the four
he's encouraged us to expect [MUSIC].
Now according to logical symmetry, this phrase, too, should be repeated. But of course
it isn't (a case, perhaps, of predictable unpredictability). Instead, Vivaldi gives us a new
phrase (whose second half is itself a repetition), and this is repeated, but at a lower pitch -
8.558028-29 45
another ploy borrowed from the first movement [MUSIC].

And so it goes. In the first solo section, repetitiousness reaches almost suicidal proportions.
46 8.558028-29
And the rather strident double-stoppings here, by contrast with the first movement, evoke the
distinctive sound of valveless hunting horns - those famously braying emblems of the gentry at
play [MUSIC].
12:1] The orchestra now repeats the first half of the opening theme before the soloist returns,
double-stopping at first, but soon embarking on an extended passage of out-and-out virtuosity, all
the more exciting for being completely unexpected [MUSIC].
122) The orchestra then contributes another flourish of the opening theme, before the soloist, in
a sudden and dramatic change of role, takes on the part of the fleeing beast, with horses and
hounds in hot pursuit [MUSIC].
[2l It's interesting that Vivaldi cared so much for the symmetry of the concerto as a whole that
he used very similar means to characterise very different images. The first solo entry of this
movement is directly comparable with the same point in the first movement, yet one depicts
peasants, the other their overlords. And the next solo entry in this last movement, reflecting the
dismay and exhaustion of the hunted animal, bears more than a passing resemblance to the
slipping and sliding of the drunkard in the first [MUSIC].
From now to the end, the alternation of soloist and orchestra holds no very great surprises,
though the last flurry of resistance, followed by the death of the hapless beast, is genuinely
memorable - all the more so, of course, in the context of the movement as a whole.
46 8.558028-29
Classics Explained: Vivaldi n.e Four Seasons
The Four Seasons: Winter

Now we walk on the ice, with slow steps,
Attentive how we walk, for fear of falling;
lfwe move quickly, we slip and fall to earth,

Again walking heavily on the ice,
Until the ice breaks and dissolves;
We hear from the closed doors
Boreas and all the winds at war -
This is winter, but such as brings joy.
8.558028-29 47
First Movement: Allegro non molto

12§1 Structurally, the first movement of the last concerto, 'Winter', is the most
straightforward so far, which isn't to detract from its quality. In atmosphere and imagery, it's
one of the most remarkable things Vivaldi ever wrote. Playing single, repeated notes with an
almost fateful regularity, the orchestral strings enter, part by part. First the cellos, then the
violas, then the second violins, then the first - together they set the bleak, snowy scene,
vividly conveying the people's shivering and their chattering teeth. And the first solo
contributes a dramatic evocation of the biting wind [MUSIC].
In! But the wind comes in gusts, disappearing for a moment, while the strings continue their
measured trudge through the snow, before returning, twice more, with icy blasts which seem to
cackle in malign delight at its power to torment.
In the next section, the travellers attempt to quicken their pace, but then, in fear of frostbite,
stop to stamp their feet, in one of Vivaldi's most vivid and arresting strokes of tone-painting
[MUSIC].
12B] When the soloist returns, the wind has subsided to no more than a chilly breeze, so
artfully evoked that one can almost see the flurry of snowflakes which now impair the travellers'
vision [MUSIC].
The orchestral wind returns, now markedly stronger, punctuating the soloist's snow flurries
with six outbursts, each calling for the full orchestra [MUSIC].
13:oJ But as suddenly as it appeared, the wind drops, and in one of the fastest costume
changes in orchestral history, the travellers (again portrayed by the orchestra) continue on
their weary way. Apart from a single, brief, lyrical interlude (whose place in the
programmatic stream of things is unclear), the soloist now plays with the orchestra, vividly
depicting the chattering of teeth. Both because of the chattering teeth and the quickening pace of
the violins, it's easy to miss the fact that we are now in the final reprise of the opening section.
The final reprise, yes; the end of the movement, no. Vivaldi has one more surprise in store for us.
48 8.558028-29
Far from ending, as he began,
8.558028-29 49
with bleak footsteps in the snow, he now continues on to his second main theme, and ends
triumphantly with an ingeniously extended version of the memorable foot-stamping episode.
[MUSIC]
The travellers have reached their destination. But in such triumph that it's easy to forget the
perils of the journey as a whole. So once again, it's back to the beginning:
FIRST MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO NON MOLTO
DUR: 3.25
Second Movement: Largo

It's hard, frankly, to say anything about the beautiful slow movement that it doesn't say
eloquently for itself. One continuous accompanied solo, it combines one of Vivaldi's most
irresistibly romantic melodies with an inspired accompaniment of plucked strings, standing in for
the drops of rain outside the window on a cold winter's evening. [MUSIC].
1M] And let no-one ever complain that scales are dull. What, after all, is the sequence of rising
lines in the melody's second strain but a series of simple scales, animated by a continuation of the
opening rhythm? [MUSIC].
In fact, we have here two scalewise ideas for the price of one. At first we hear this second
strain as a series of upward movements, balancing the downward drift of the first phrase as a
whole. But the first note of each rising scale actually represents a new step in a larger,
downward moving scale. And these give us Vivaldi's 'trademark' pattern of four descending
notes [MUSIC).
But this descent is neatly dove-tailed with a new, rising scale-pattern, each step of which is
introduced by the same three-note figure. In each case, the breadth of movement is emphasised
by the steadily widening gap between the main note and its three-note introduction [MUSIC].
[I] And then, having stretched his upwards scale-figure over such a long span, Vivaldi brings
this leisurely, expansive section to a close by increasing the pace eight-fold. And how? Through
50 8.558028-29
one simple (and complete) downwards scale which is accomplished in the space of time
previously occupied by a single scale-step [MUSIC].
] Nowhere is the difference between pace and tempo better illustrated than here. From
beginning to end, nothing happens to disturb the absolute regularity of the underlying pulse. The
drops of water are unvarying. Yet our sense of movement varies many times. In that slow, rising
scale-figure which brings this first half of the movement to its climax, there's a clear sense of two
main events in the bar. We actually hear the violin play eight notes, but only two, the highest and
longest, occupy the foreground. The three-note introduction in each case is felt at a much lower
level of importance, of coherence, of one thing connecting with another. It's those other notes
which feel connected: [MUSIC]
In the last half of the next-to-last bar (our eight-fold increase), we also hear eight notes, but
in this case every one of them is felt at the same level. There's no foreground or background.
There are just eight notes, each of which is a new event, each of which connects directly, in our
perception, to the notes on either side of it. [MUSIC]
This is a good place to remember that what we call the scale derives from the Italian word
for 'ladder' ('scala'). What we have in this downward scale is eight events happening in exactly
the same space of time in which we previously felt only one. The tempo is the same. The pace is
radically faster. This perception of events happening at different levels of importance, this sense
of a foreground and a background, is perhaps the single greatest key there is to what we might call
musical understanding - and it's something which everyone with any response to music at all
understands instinctively and unconsciously. And there's a perfect linguistic analogy to this. To
virtually every child, and most adults, it seems that all foreigners whose language we don't
understand speak much faster than we do. This is a near-universal experience. And the
explanation is quite simple: when we hear a language unknown to us, what we hear is a steady
sequence of single syllables, none of which has any meaning of its own. When we English
speakers (or even English understanders) hear the word 'radioactivity', we hear one thing, not
50 8.558028-29
seven. The syllables combine to make a word, and the word takes precedence in our minds over
the syllables which make it up. Music functions in exactly the same way. Like the man in
Moliere's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme who's astounded to discover that all his life he's been
speaking prose, so we need no technical training to distinguish the wood from the trees where
music is concerned. To a very large extent it's something we do naturally and unconsciously. As
far as this movement is concerned, all the elements are now in place and call for little comment.
There are some minor variations of some of the tunes in the remainder of the movement, and
trying to spot them won't do any harm, but the fact is that it all too often distracts one from the
beauty and substance of the music itself.
SECOND MOVEMENT: LARGO
DUR: 2.20
Third Movement: Allegro

i!2] The finale (not only of this concerto but of the whole cycle) opens with an evocation of the
caution and latent excitement of walking on the ice of frozen lakes, canals and rivers. For the first
time, the movement begins with the soloist alone (apart from a long, sustained F from the cello)
- possibly suggesting the solitude of individual responsibility. Here repetition is used to suggest
the care and attention given to every individual step (the first four bars are identical, the next four
likewise, except for the first note.) [MUSIC]
] As the wa.lker gains in confidence, the violin rises progressively, in sequence. Here, by
contrast, no two bars are the same (at least in pitch), and the first notes of each one gradually
unfurl the chord of the home key, F minor - yet another good example of foreground and
background. [MUSIC].
As the first orchestral section opens, the walker is joined by others (courtesy of the upper
strings), and the pace is halved as the walkers proceed 'slowly and fearfully' (Vivaldi actually
quotes the sonnet in the score). As more joi'n in, their collective apprehension mounts. And the
8.558028-29 51
tension is increased by the onset of chromaticism, which always undermines stability' [MUSIC].
l!5J And the walkers fears were well-grounded (in more than one sense). They lose their
balance, and with their arms flailing, they all fall down [MUSIC].
At this point, the soloist returns, as the original solitary walker gets up, tempting fate as he
strides away, leaving the others prostrate on the ice [MUSIC].
In] His companions collect their wits and follow their leader, but more cautiously. And again
chromaticism undermines their confidence. And again we have that important distinction
between pace and speed: The note-to-note speed of the soloist's well-filled bars is fast; the larger
scale descent is slow, with each scale-step occupying two full bars. And we get only one note of
the upper-structure for every sixteen notes actually played (talk about a contrast!).'
In the middle-ground we have the second violins, proceeding at a rate of one change per bar
(the start of each new bar announcing a new scale-step) ... and in the background we have the
soloist outlining the highest structural level at the rate of one new scale-step every two bars. The
more you listen, the clearer all this will become.
In his fidelity to the programmatic sonnet, Vivaldi leaves no stone unturned. Every near-miss,
every wobble, every fall is carefully documented in the score. The soloist is obviously the most
acrobatic of the walkers. The others certainly fall first in the next solo section, while the soloist
engages in a few virtuosic spins, but 'pride', as the old saying has it, 'goeth before a fall', and this
is no exception. With a lone, sustained note in the cellos (representing the ice), the fateful
' In the soloist's descending, sequential scales we find a larger scalewise descent as our ears 'connect' the
first notes of the soloist's every descent - a clear case of the foreground/background phenomenon which
we've already encountered, and which is common to all so-called 'classical' music.
' Here again we have a kind of terrace of different structural levels, each one unfolding at a different pace,
but all in the same tempo. In the foreground we have the soloist, with six notes (six 'events') per bar-
clearly a fast pace.
52 8.558028-29
moment arrives and the soloist spirals downwards for all to see, or at least to hear, and then, after
a mad scramble by the fallen, the ice breaks up [MUSIC].
We now have a major scene change, as the orchestra evoke the warming winds of the
Sirocco, blowing up from the deserts of northern Africa [MUSIC].
But winter is not to be dismissed without a fight. Now comes an answering blast from the
Borea, the cold wind from the North. And the challenge is taken up. The winds engage in a battle
for supremacy which brings the concerto, and the cycle, to its thrilling end [MUSIC].
The same concerto a hundred times? Vivaldi would probably have become famous for
writing any one of these four alone. And the next time you hear anyone knocking him (it happens
all too often), just remember that among his greatest admirers was one Johann Sebastian Bach.
And why? Because he wrote music like this:
[fil] THIRD MOVEMENT: ALLEGRO
DUR: 3.06
8.558028-29 53
8 Challenges to the Interpreter
To a certain extent, it's safe to say that the older the music you're dealing with the more challenges
there are likely to be. In most of Bach's music, for instance, there are seldom even any tempo
indications, let alone written-out phrasings and articulation marks (short, separated, longer,
continuous and so on). The fact is that composers of music up until the second half of the 18th
century trusted their interpreters far more than later composers have, for the simple reason that
composer and performer were generally one and the same. With the exception of opera, few
works ever received (or were intended to receive) more than a couple of performances.
Generally speaking, it was only with the advent of the public concert in the mid-17th century that
the question of 'interpretation' arose at all.
Vivaldi was a far more cosmopolitan figure than Bach, who never set foot outside his native
Germany, and the publication of his concertos naturally presupposed performances by others,
but even so, they had a limited shelf life (just as a novel may be read twice but seldom more).
Vivaldi's expressive markings are positively lavish in comparison with Bach's, but they still leave
a lot to the performer's imagination.
If only because of the enormous amount of repetition (or near-repetition), the biggest
interpretative challenges are faced by the conductor, who has to strike an acceptable balance
between familiarity and tedium, stylization and realism. If the listener's reaction is "Oh not that
54 8.558028-29
again!", the blame must be shared by conductor and composer (with possibly just a little left over
for the listener, who may be listening too superficially).
The most obvious way of differentiating repeated playings of identical music is to use the
straightforward 'echo' effect - one of Vivaldi's most famous (or notorious) trademarks and
this needn't be applied only where he asks for it. Another possibility, though opportunities for
it are rarer, is to reverse the procedure, emphasising the repetition by underlining it, as it were
- first statement: question (tentative), second statement: answer (declamatory).
A subtler approach involves a differentiation not only of volume but of tone colour. This is
achieved by a change of balance, bringing out more in the lower registers (bass, cellos, violas)
than in the first statement, which will naturally have stressed the uppermost part, the melody.
More vital than any of these considerations, however, is the matter of rhythmic momentum.
And this concerns conductor and soloist equally. Vivaldi was a powerfully rhythmic composer,
whose rhythms are as memorable in many ways as the melodies in which they already play a
definitive role (rhythm. after all can exist without melody, but melody without rhythm is
impossible). To bring rhythm to life in performance, accentuation must be relative rather than
identical, just as it is in speech. The surest way to kill a poem is to read it with a relentless
sameness of metrical stress, as most children do. Yet many performers who get paid big money
are hardly better than children in this. Excessive sameness, indiscriminate accentuation, is one of
the greatest enemies of musical performance - seldom more so than in Vivaldi, who was given to
using rhythmic 'motto's' which in the wrong hands can quickly outstay their welcome. At the
same time, it's often the application of the same rhythms to different melodies that gives a piece
of music its sense of unity, of organic togetherness. In cases like these, too little accentuation can
undermine rather than enhance the music. All performers are to some extent on a rhythmic
tightrope, but players of Vivaldi are more exposed than most.
One particular problem that arises in The Four Seasons (as in most examples of 'illustrative',
'descriptive', 'programmatic' music) is sorting out the rival claims of artistic refinement and
8.558028-29 55
·realistic' characterisation. As mentioned in the main analytical text, Vivaldi at one point
specifically requires the violas to play 'loud and raspingly' in their role as a barking dog (slow
movement of Spring), yet no conductor would dream of actually taking him at his word. This
is not simply an imitation of a dog, it's a highly stylised, symbolic representation.
Less clear cut is the soloist's depiction of the drunkard in 'Autumn'. The line between
characterisation and caricature is a very thin one, and most players opt for caution here. It
must be remembered that relatively few people know anything about the programmatic
nature of the 'Seasons' and will not therefore get the joke if the soloist hams it up. Quite the
contrary: it will only sound badly played.
When it comes to more generalised representations, as in the storms depicted in 'Summer'
and 'Winter', no such risks arise. Here it really is a question of temperament and personal
preference. However, the strength of the verbal cues in the sonnets themselves does suggest
a more melodramatic treatment than most conductors are inclined to provide. One of the
things which singled out The Four Seasons from most other concertos, even by Vivaldi, is the degree
of violence and the depth of emotion they contain. 'Summer' in particular, ifwe take our cues
from the sonnet as well as the music, is a bitter depiction of humanity's powerlessness in the
face of nature. Only in the context of natural devastation, or the threat of it, can we wholly
understand the fear, the anger and the sorrow of the lone peasant as he contemplates his
ruination. Translators haven't helped the interpreter by suggesting that the slow movement
depicts the weeping of a peasant boy rather than the peasant himself. Not because boys don't
cry, but because the tears of a boy are irrelevant to the context. The tears of the peasant, on
the other hand, fit it like a glove.
One of the most basic decisions the conductor has to take concerns the size of the orchestra.
In the early days of the LP, back in the 1950s (and it was the LP in alliance with the radio that
made the 'Seasons' the chart-topper it is today), it was common to hear the work given by the
undiminished strings of a large symphony orchestra. Today, in the light of modern musicological
56 8.558028-29
evidence, no conductor of any standing would even consider such a thing. Yet few conductors, if
any, who opt for the use of modern instruments would reduce the orchestra to the extent favoured
by many musicological scholars. These might well use no more than a single player for each part.
No matter what the choice, however, the work's phenomenal staying power is a matter of
historical record, and shows no sign of diminishing.
9 A Structural Overview
I. SPRING
FIRST MOVEMENT:
RITORNELLO I:
THEME ONE: Home key (tonic): E major.
THEME TWO: Variant of the first
EPISODE I: Solo section: 'Birdsong'; No melody. Outstanding feature: Trills and
scalewise 'slides' from soloist and orchestral violins
RITORNELLO 2: Theme Two
EPISODE 2: Trickling of the springs. Outstanding feature: slow, rhythmic trills in
upper strings; slower, regular accompaniment in lower strings
RITORNELLO 3: Second half of Theme 2; key: B major (dominant)
EPISODE 3: Thunderstorm. Outstanding feature: rapid repeated notes
('tremolandos') in all parts
RITORNELLO 4: second half of main theme; now in C sharp (relative) minor
EPISODE 4: Song of the birds. Outstanding feature: evenly spaced repeated notes,
rising chromatically to gradually increasing trills in upper strings
RITORNELLO 5: Short variation (mostly rhythmic) of opening theme
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SECOND MOVEMENT
MAIN THEME: Sleeping goatherd; Statement: descending: Answer: rising
VAR!ANT 1: Beginning of slow 4-note descent; harmonic pace quickens
VARIANT 2: Slow, stepwise pattern, rising to the movement's climax
CLOSING SECTION Reprise of Variant 1, Part 2
THIRD MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO 1:
THEME ONE: Peasants Dancing. Outstanding feature: closely spaced, strongly marked
'swinging' dance rhythm
THEME TWO: Variant of Theme I:
THEME THREE: Variant of Theme 1
EPISODE 1: Solo. Smooth, lyrical entry of solo violin, leading to rising sequences
derived from the theme's opening figure
RITORNELLO 2:
PART 1: Second half of Theme 1 in new key: C sharp (relative) minor
PART2: transitional theme; broad pace; highly expressive suspensions
PART3: conversational exchanges, a smoothed out derivative of Theme I
EPISODE 2: Accompanied solo; derived from Parts 2 & 3 of Ritornello 2
RITORNELLO 3:
PART 1: Pace slows with a descending 4-note pattern
PART2: Transitional, 'birdsong' variation of Part I
PART 3: Derived from Theme 1; harmonic instability ('mini-earthquake')
PART4 Broad, flowing, derivative of Ritornello 2, Part 3; 'harmonic landslide')
EPISODE 3: lonely, questioning ·soliloquy', derived from Ritornello 3, Part 4)
RITORNELLO 4: Compression of Ritornello 1, harping on 4-note descent:
8.558028-29 59
2.SUMMER
FIRST MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO I
PART!
Disjointed 'gasping' in the heat
PART2
Tropical torpor; listless descent in all parts
EPISODE I
Virtuosic Solo. The violin as cuckoo (and cello as hen?)
RITORNELLO 2
Orchestra hijacks soloist's material, then reprises Theme One:
EPISODE 2 Abrupt mood change: soloist becomes turtle dove, then goldfinch
RITORNELLO 3
PART I Flowing, triplet evocation of breezes in upper strings. Suspense
PART 2 The North Wind. Virtuosic writing for entire orchestra
PART 3 Variant of opening; torpor returns
EPISODE 3 Soloist returns, now portraying a weeping peasant
FINAL RITORNELLO
SECOND MOVEMENT
Accompanied solo, interrupted by orchestral thunder
THIRD MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO I
PART I: Sequential bursts of thunder, separated by tension-building silence.
Outstanding feature: rapid repeated notes in all parts:
PART 2: Lightning. Outstanding feature: sequential, downward-driving scales in
orchestral violins
PART3: Upward-flashing 'heat' lightning in violins; downward-stabbing 'fork'
lightning in violas
PART4: Torrential rains. Downward force of violins' repeating arpeggios.
Outstanding feature: near-obsessive tremolandos in all parts
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EPISODE 1 SOLO:
Part 1: Soloist's most virtuosic passages yet (peasant railing at heavens?)
Part 2: 'Quivering' downwards scale, ends with 'trembling' harping on one note
RITORNELLO 2: Widely spread rising arpeggios in orchestral violins, succeeded by
'triumphant' rising scales and a rousing derivative of the opening
'thunder' music.
EPISODE 2 Brief, tense solo, latter referring to the orchestral 'rain' music. Notable
feature: repeated rhythmic 'signature' in cello accompaniment:
RITORNELLO 3 Variant of opening 'thunder' music.
EPISODE 3 Brief solo, combining steady upward rise with tremolando 'pedal' point
[see Glossary].
RITORNELLO 4 'Rain' music (scalic) in upper strings, over thundery rumbles in bass.
EPISODE 4 Very brief, highly virtuosic rising and falling figures from the soloist.
RITORNELLO 5 Even briefer interjection by the orchestra, with lightning. rain and
thunder figures.
EPISODE 5 Sequence of upward pairs in solo, while orchestra falls silent.
FINAL RITORNELLO
Massed strings in stormy variant of RitorneUo 1, Part 4.
3.AUTUMN
FIRST MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO 1:
THEME ONE:
Initial statement; pause; 'Echo' restatement at lower pitch
THEME TWO:
closely related to First Theme; unexpected extension of phrase;'Echo'
effect
EPISODE 1
8.558028-29 61
Part I Solo restatement of Theme One but without pitch change

Part 2 New theme, where a repeat of Theme Two might be expected; Repeated
at a lower pitch, as in the opening
RITORNELLO 2 Brief derivative of opening theme
EPISODE2
Part 1 Solo violin in the role of drunkard: stumbles, rises, stumbles again
Part 2 Drunken slips and slides in the solo violin, with cello accompaniment
derived from the opening phrase of the movement
Part 3 Orchestra enters, as though for a reprise of the opening but is promptly
interrupted by the cackling, inebriated giggles of the 'drunken' soloist
Part4 More drunks arrive, this time orchestral; tipsy dialogue with soloist
RITORNELLO 3 Full orchestra, as dancing, sober peasants; introduces the opening theme
in the minor mode, but then drifts sequentially through a period of
harmonic uncertainty
EPISODE 3 Introduced by orchestra with derivative of the opening theme, which is
then interrupted by the 'drunken' soloist, whose laborious re-entry is
followed by a daredevil display of attempted virtuosity
RlTORNELLO 4 Orchestra returns with a variant of the opening theme, which then gives
way to a fragmented debate between the upper and lower strings
EPISODE4
Part 1 'Drunken' soloist re-enters with a flourish and then falls into an alcoholic
slumber (a slow, accompanied solo)
Part 2 While the soloist 'sleeps', in long sustained notes, discussion breaks out
amongst the orchestral peasants, drawing on the short-short long-long
'motto' rhythm first heard towards the end of the opening ritomello.
RITORNELLO 5 Abbreviated version of Ritornello 1
62 8.558028-29
SECOND MOVEMENT See main text

THIRD MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO I
Part I Short, rhythmic phrase, effectively of two notes, immediately 'echoed'
Part 2 Derived from Part I but now outlining four descending notes (one of
Vivaldi's thematic trademarks); no repeat, but one ·extra' bar
Part 3 New theme, immediately repeated; closing figure identical to opening
EPISODE I Solo violin introduces a new theme, closely modelled on the preceding
and given out in 'double stops', in imitation of hunting horns
RITORNELLO 2 Exact repetition of Ritornello I, Part 1
EPISODE 2 Soloist returns, double-stopping at first but soon embarking on an
extensive passage of highly virtuosic character
RITORNELLO 3 Orchestra presents First Theme in a new key: C major (dominant)
EPISODE 3 Solo violin takes the part of the quarry in flight, closely followed by
orchestral 'hunters', all galloping hooves and menacing bayings
RITORNELLO 4 Exact repeat of Ritornello 3
EPISODE 4 Solo violin again depicts the fleeing and increasingly desperate quarry
RITORNELLO 5 Near-exact repeat of Ritornello 1, Part I
EPISODE 5 Violin depicts the final, desperate rush of the quarry; the beast
dies FINAL RITORNELLO
Compressed version of Ritornello I, leaving out Part 2 and reversing the order of Parts I & 3
4. WINTER
FIRST MOVEMENT
RITORNELLO I
Successive entries of strings from cellos and basses upwards; uniform
rhythm of repeated notes
8.558028-29 63
EPISODE I Rapid figuration in violin depicts the biting wind

RITORNELLO 2 Derivative of opening; speed of repeated notes doubles, representing a
faster walking pace, pause for vigorous foot-stamping
EPISODE 2
Part 1
Rapid figuration from solo violin depicts snow flurries over minimal
accompaniment from the cellos
Part 2 Soloist's 'snow flurries' interrupted by worsening winter wind
RITORNELLO 3 Orchestra returns to the depiction of the weary travellers; (Brief,
abbreviated juxtaposition of Ritornellos I & 2)
EPISODE 3 Very brief, sequential appearance by the soloist, recalling the first solo
entry of the movement, and followed by:
RITORNELLO 4 Chattering teeth, foot-stamping, journey's end: from here to the end,
soloist and orchestra play together. Fast repeated notes and thrilling,
shivering 'tremolandos' help to disguise the return of the opening
ritornello theme
SECOND MOVEMENT:
OPENING SECTION:
Part I Beneath one of Vivaldi's most romantic and extended melodies (played
by the solo violin), plucked strings in the orchestra represent drops of rain
outside the window, on a cold winter's evening (warmed inside by a fire
in the grate)
Part 2 In the answering phrase, the violin traces a sequence of rising scale
patterns, keeping to the slow-fast-fast-slow pattern of the opening rhythm
Part 3 A pattern of scalewise rises in the solo part is decorated by the repeated
use of a simple three-note 'upbeat' (see Glossary)
Part 4 Quicker, descending scale in the solo violin brings the section to a close
64 8.558028-29
MIDDLE SECTION
Part 1 Opening phrase of the movement repeated in a new key: B flat (the
Dominant)
Part 2 Rising, rhythmic scale patterns of Track 85, transposed to the Dominant
FINAL SECTION Fragmentary theme, derived from earlier material, is repeated in
sequence, returning us to the tonic (E flat) for the beautiful final cadence,
whose most striking feature is the long sustained note of the solo violin,
at rest after a movement of continuous motion
THIRD MOVEMENT:
INTRODUCTION Unconventionally beginning the movement with a solo, Vivaldi here uses
repetition to depict the care and attention of every step taken by a walker
on the ice. In the second phase, the violin, in a series of ornate turns,
unfurls the chord of F minor, the concerto's home key (tonic)
RITORNELLO 1:
Part 1 With the arrival of the orchestra, the lone walker is joined by others in a
sequence of increasingly chromatic scale figures which gives way to the
steady and unmelodic bouncing of bows on strings to depict the fearful
beating of the hearts in the face of danger
Part 2 In a series of downwards scale figures, first in the violins, later joined by
the rest of the orchestra, the walkers pay for a moment of boldness with
a fall
EPISODE 1
Part 1 The soloist now arises and strides off, abandoning the fallen
Part 2 The violin now traces a sequence of short, paired stepwise figures (first
falling, then rising) »-hich are heard as distinct entities in their own right -
a clear case of foreground/background (see main text)
8.558028-29 65
Part 3 The soloist turns daredevil with a sequence of virtuosic flourishes, but
then pays the price as a tremulous series of triplet-figures
demonstrates that nobody can evade the pull of gravity
RITORNELLO 2 The orchestra, with a dramatic slowing of tempo, evokes the warm winds
of the Sirocco, blowing up from northern Africa
FINAL SECTION
Introduced by the solo violin, the cold winter wind returns, soon to be
joined by the other winds in a series of exchanges making dramatic use of
the exciting 'foot-stamping' music.
66 8.558028-29
Ways of Listening 10
The first way of listening is to be receptive to the emotions or states of mind which the music
expresses, though it's often difficult to describe or even to recognise just what these are. In
many ways music takes up where words leave off. To an extent unknown to words, music can mirror
the physical manifestations of human experience: crying, laughing, sighing, moaning,
shouting, breathing, growling, soothing; it can be jagged and extreme or soothing, even
seductive in its curvaceous contours; it can exactly imitate the changes in our pulse, the rate of our
breathing, the subtlest outlines of all our non-verbal expression of life in all its infinite variety.
And precisely because it is non-conceptual and unspecific, it can convey us deep into the
realms of the purely beautiful. A work may overwhelm us in its sheer loveliness without
seeming specifically 'happy' or 'sad' (Mozart often does this). But it needn't overwhelm us at
all.
Much music - most music - never sets out to overwhelm. It aims to entertain, to amuse, to
create or enhance a certain atmosphere, to be heard as much as to be listened to. If it's good, it
may encourage us to listen rather than merely hear, but it doesn't require us to. Of course. there
are limits. To put on Bach's B minor Mass (Naxos 8.550585-86) as background music at a dinner
party would be a kind of sacrilege. But Telemann's voluminous Tafelmusik, or 'Table Music'
(Naxos 8.553724-5, 8.553731-2), was ac_tually designed for that purpose. Many works, and
8.558028-29 67
several masterworks, by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were likewise written for casual listening
68 8.558028-29
(Mozart's serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, for example) but can repay repeated hearings with
new discoveries every time.
Directed and Undirected Listening

Aaron Copland's well-known book What to Listen for in Music is full of helpful advice and
observations but the fact is that there are times when listening specifically for something can be
so distracting that you end up not really having heard the music as a whole. Directed listening can
be a valuable, perhaps even an indispensable tool in the exploration of a masterpiece (or any
other piece, for that matter), but it can never rival the rewards of undirected, observational
listening. Listening to, not listeningfor. But listening, not just hearing.
How to listen? Get comfortable. Close your eyes. Remove as many distractions as possible
(but closing your eyes is the fastest possible way of sharpening your hearing). As a preliminary
exercise, indeed as a regular exercise), simply close your eyes and use your ears alone as your
window on the world - even for a minute. Then do the same thing with music. Notice what you
hear - but don't make a mental note of it (No lists in your head' That's exactly the kind of
distraction we're trying to get free of. Just hear). The more you listen, the more you'll notice. The
more you notice, the better you'll remember it. And the more you remember, the more you'll
begin to notice other things, 'new' things, that you'd missed before. And so it goes, part of a
never-ending, ever-rewarding journey. Learning was never so easy or so pleasant.
Dialogue and Characterisation

Much music, from the simple unaccompanied melody to the most gargantuan symphony, is
modeled on conversation. The participants can be distinguished by various types of contrasts.
At the start of Johann Strauss's 'Blue Danube' Waltz, the main contrasts are of pitch: 'Low'
(the opening phrase)); and 'High' (the answering phrase); and of length: One long phrase: ('Oh
won't you please dance?'), followed (and more importantly, balanced) by two short ones: ('I
8.558028-29 69
might.' 'I might.')

And there may be a particular similarity to emphasize their connection, to link 'question' with
'answer'.
In this case, it's the rhythmic, two-syllable 'pick up' of the first phrase by the second -where the
rhythm at the end of the first phrase ('please dance') is immediately taken up and 'echoed' by the
second ('I might'). The two are rhythmically identical.
As in verbal conversation, 'statements' will tend to have a falling inflection at the end,
'questions' a rising one. In the same way, rich, heavy sonorities (as of the full strings and brass in
an orchestra) may be 'answered' by thinner, lighter ones (a solo flute or a group of three or four
solo instruments).
A further agent of conversation/dialogue/argument is characterization (male-female,
assertive-tentative, grandiose-intimate and so on).
One thing is certain: musical events don't merely succeed one another. They react to one
another. Most music is a continually developing chain of cause and effect, in a continually
changing context.
Music and Memory

Since memory plays an essential role in musical understanding, it's worth developing. And there
are techniques for doing this.
A key role in the memorization of anything is played by association. 'Listen to that, Darling.
They're playing our song.' That proverbial 'song' is 'theirs' because it's particularly associated
with a specific event. The more we remember about the circumstances in which we first heard a
piece, the more likely we are to remember the music. If it was at an outdoor concert, on a
brilliant, sunny, summer's day in a park, with gaily dressed people lying on the rich green grass,
some holding parasols, some basking in the shade of sweetly-scented rose bushes, with blooms of
red, yellow and white, let all this mingle in the mind.
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The Dickensianly named nineteenth-century English musician Ebenezer Prout helped his
pupils to memorize Bach fugue subjects by setting them to words: 'Oh Ebenezer Prout/You are a
funny man!/ You play Bach's fugues/As quickly as you can!' The same technique works with
more appropriate words and can give a fascinating insight into the connections between music
and speech.
Another helpful technique is to try and hear music 'silently', in your head, beginning with tiny
fragments, if necessary, like the individual lines of a common round (Frere Jacques, Three Blind
Mice, whatever), and working up, very gradually, to longer and more complex things. And
the same thing can be done with instrumentation and tone colour, by imagining that a given
line, large or small, is played on a trumpet, an oboe, a cello, a harpsichord. But as with physical
fitness, these are exercises to be practised some time but not all the time. It cannot be stressed
too much: there is no one 'right' way to listen to music. In fact, the more the merrier.
8.558028-29 71
What Music Is 11
Music and Emotion

For most ofus, and for most composers, music and emotion are inextricably linked. In the 20th
century, a new breed of composer emerged, for whom intellect, mathematics and structure
appeared more important than emotional expression, but in most cases that's not how the
composers themselves thought ofit.
It was Stravinsky (1882-1971) who notoriously proclaimed that 'music is powerless to express
anything at all', but his music told a different story. And Bart6k (1881-1945): 'I cannot even
conceive of music that expresses nothing.' And Alban Berg (1885-1935): 'The best music always
results from ecstasies of logic.' For Mozart, the two most important qualities in a performance
were 'taste and feeling'. for Bach, music was 'an agreeable harmony for the honour of God and
the permissible delights of the soul.' And Beethoven, to the violinist Schuppanzigh, who had
protested that something Beethoven had written was impossible: 'What do I care for your
miserable fiddle when the spirit moves me?'' 'Spirit'. 'moves me', 'delights of the soul', 'ecstasies',
these aren't terms of exclusion, but a celebration of music's capacity to express, reflect and
unlock those experiences which are universal - feelings which are common to all ofus. When we
laugh or cry or shout or moan (often involuntarily) we don't do it in any particular language.
Whatever their virtues, languages divide us. Music unites us. 'Who hears music,' wrote Robert
8.558028-29 71
Browning, 'has his solitude peopled at once.'

There is virtually no emotion or state of mind that isn't manifested physically, and there
are very few physical manifestations of emotion that music can't symbolize with remarkable
accuracy: the quickening or slowing of our breathing or heartbeat, the intake and exhalation
of breath, the poignant inflection of the sigh, the jagged contour and raised voices of anger,
the rhythms of love-making, the closely related convulsions of boisterous laughter and racking
sobs, the trembling of limbs (from either cold or fear), and so on.
But music can enhance and in some cases even cause emotions and states of mind as well as
reflecting them. Woe betide the general who substitutes a waltz for a military march. And how
many national anthems are there that don't make a direct appeal to the emotions and stress the
confidence of unity? Music has been a vital part of propaganda since time immemorial. It can
also trigger mass hysteria. Who would ever have heard of Frank Sinatra or the Beatles if they had
recited their lyrics rather than sung them?
And music has been used as an agent of seduction, by both sexes, in every community in the
world, no matter how ancient or primitive, and for longer than anyone can remember.
Music and Structure

Music has been described as 'melted architecture',just as architecture as has been called 'frozen
music'. But both analogies are more memorable than helpful. Whereas one can take in the basic
structure of a Greek temple at a glance, perceiving its symmetry and contrasts, structure in music
can only be perceived retrospectively (or to be more precise, retro-audially). The perception of
musical structure is reliant on repetition and therefore dependent on memory. When Theme I
comes back, after Theme 2 and a central Theme 3, the symmetry of its return can't be appreciated
if Theme I isn't remembered, and its return therefore recognised as such. And only when Themes
1 and 2 have been repeated can we recognise (necessarily in retrospect) the centrality of Theme
3. What we have, in effect, is a Theme 3 sandwich, with Themes I & 2 as the bread on either side.
72 8.558028-29
In the broadest possible view, the resultant structure can be summarised as A-8-A (what we call
a 'ternary form' - easy to remember, being a three-part form which involves a return).
There are only two basic types of structure in music, which we can describe as the 'circular' (as
in the above example which turns in on itself, involving repetition and returning at some point to
its origin) and the 'chain', whose parts succeed one another in a potentially endless sequence: not
A-8-A, but A-8-C-D-E-F (as in the conventional Theme and Variations). These are not, of course,
the only possible forms as such, but they are the two basic form types, despite some fairly
elaborate interminglings.
Two questions arise. I) ls the perception of structure essential to the appreciation of music?,
and 2) How is such perception acquired? The answer to Question 1 is emphatically "no'. There
are many people with a wide listening knowledge and a deep love, even a passion for music, who
know little or nothing about musical structures, and who are unaware that they are hearing a
work in 'sonata' form. What's more, there are many musicians, who have this knowledge - could
even write pieces in this or that form - but for whom its recognition and active following during a
performance is not a matter of primary importance. Surgeons need a thorough knowledge of
anatomy but feel no need for x-ray vision in their daily, social, family and romantic lives - any
more than architects need or even want an active awareness of underlying girders, lath and
plaster when savouring the design of a beautiful building.
The answer to Question 2 is less straightforward but basically simpler. On the one hand,
the more you listen, the more you hear. On the other, you can learn the basic forms (outlined
below) and listen to works (though not all the time) specifically in order to cultivate an aural
recognition of their structure. Only when such recognition is more or less automatic, indeed
almost subconscious, can it play its proper part in a truly artistic appreciation of music. 'We
learn,' says the old proverb, 'in order to forget.' And it must be stressed that not even the
greatest connoisseurs always listen to music in the same way, or at the same level.
73 8.55
802
Music as Entertainment
The great masterpieces of musical history represent a tiny proportion of the music played or
heard at any given period. By far the largest body of music ever composed or invented was
conceived with the simple aim of entertaining. Before the advent of broadcasting and recording,
it was music, more than anything, which kept us entertained in company. It was a great social
lubricant, it fostered a sense of community, it provided work for idle hands, and it served
delightfully to pass the time. No other form of entertainment, by itself, provided such scope for
communal involvement, and it was an essential adjunct to other forms of agreeable distraction.
In ballads and other songs, it provided a vehicle for storytelling, it gave a sense of solace and
community to labourers while at the same time enhancing their labours, dancing depended on it,
and its role in the theatre, whether spoken or sung, was enormous. But of all forms of
entertainment, music, more than any other, has been regarded throughout history as particularly
dangerous. Its alleged power to deprave and corrupt has alarmed moralists in every century,
among them the sixteenth-century English writer Philip Stubbes:
I say of Musick, as Plato, Aristotle, Galen and many others have said ofit, that it is a very ill thing,
especially for yung heds; for it hath a certaine kinde of nice, smoothe sweetness in alluring the auditorie
to niceness, effeminacie, pussiUanimitie and lothsomeness of life, and is made apt to aU wantonness and
sinne. And therefore Writers affirme Sappho to have been expert in musick, and therefore whorish'
Interesting to see 'niceness' listed, by implication, as a vice(').
Such is music's power that monarchs, tyrants and political leaders have spent colossal
amounts of money on the most lavish of musical entertainments in the hope of distracting the
populace from the harsher realities of political life. But musical entertainments have often
been far from escapist or frivolous. From the most primitive to the most advanced societies,
musical entertainment, from simple song to Grand Opera, has frequently been the agent not
merely of criticism but of the most scathing political satire.
8.55 74
Music as Illustration
Perhaps as old as the art itself is the use of music to imitate nature. Birds have always been a
favourite, particularly the cuckoo and the hen. The whinnying of horses and the clattering of their
hooves, like the braying of donkeys, the babbling of brooks, the rnstling of breezes in the grass
and the howling of the wind, easily lend themselves to musical imitation. Drums, particularly the
timpani, are a natural for thunder, especially when amplified by gongs or cymbals. But these take
us into another and much larger realm, in which music is used to evoke not the sound but the sight
of things. Cymbals, for instance, have often been used to represent the flash of lightning, though
lightning itself is noiseless. In the famous song and piano quintet which bear the name of Trout',
Schubert evokes the movement of the fish as the sun glints off it beneath the rippling surface of
the water. And there are innumerable other examples of illustrative music, few of them more
improbable than the baby bathing in Richard Strauss's Sinfonia Domestica, or more graphic than
the severed head tumbling from guillotine to basket in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (Naxos
8.550093).
12 What Music Isn't: Music and Snobbery
Classical music, so-called 'serious' music, despite the attitude of all too many 'connoisseurs', is
not an exclusive club, to which the 'mere' listener (let alone the hitherto 'non' listener) is
denied access. It is first of all a privilege, and not a virtue. Listening to it doesn't make one a
'better' human being. It's a disturbing fact that some of the worst atrocities in human history
have been committed, and/or condoned by musical connoisseurs. Henry VIII was a
competent composer; the murderous Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was even a
great one (Naxos 8.550742). And the music-loving administrators of death camps are too
numerous to name.
To be musical is a gift. Like any other, it's a gift which can be developed indefinitely. The
truly unmusical person is relatively rare. Many people claim to be unmusical because they lack
musical knowledge. But knowledge and musicality are not the same, and knowledge can be
acquired without musical talent. Far and away the most important thing to know about music is
the loving of it, and loving it is just one step on from merely liking it. What's more, there are
many people who have come to a real enthusiasm for music only slowly, and often comparatively
late in life.
Yet every musician has encountered, and depressingly often, the person who says, in a
needlessly apologetic tone, 'I know nothing about music but I love listening to it.' They might as
76 8.558028-29
well say 'I know nothing about marine biology but I love to swim' or 'I know nothing about
syntax but I love to read'. What accounts for this apologetic ritual where music is concerned
is sheer
8.558028-29 77
snobbery- a hangover from the days of the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie in the I 8th-century, who,
taking their cue from the declining aristocracy, affected a love of music as a badge of their
gentility (and hence their superiority over the lower classes, from which they themselves had
risen). Unfortunately, the habit stuck, with the result that 'classical' music and snobbery have
gone hand-in-hand for more than two and a half centuries. though their alliance today is
increasingly threadbare.
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13 A Brief Guide to the Composer's Tools
Varieties of Contrast
Contrast is the life-blood of music. And the means of its deployment are theoretically infinite.
Below is a simple table of opposites which are frequently juxtaposed:
loud : soft (frequently employed as an echo effect)

low: high
rising : falling
slow: fast
joined : detached
many: few
solo : orchestra
curvaceous : angular
smooth : jagged
... and so on.
8.558028-29 79
Varieties of Texture
The term texture when applied to music has a double meaning. One refers to a style, a
technique of composition, the other to characteristics of sonority, of tone colour, or timbre.
Stylistically, music exists in three textures: monophonic (unaccompanied melody),
homophonic (melody with supporting harmony in the form of chords, as in the strumming of a
ukelele), and polyphonic (the interweaving of two or more melodies or melodic strands , such as
we find in a common 'round', or any fugue). Any juxtaposition of these is an example of'textural'
variety. A clear case of this arises when an operatic ensemble, or a chorus in an oratorio, is
preceded by a (speech-based) recitative.
Textural variety of a different kind occurs when different qualities of sound (wind, strings,
percussion, brass, piano, vocal and so on) are juxtaposed or combined. A superb example is
Beethoven's Fantasia in C. Op. 80, for piano, orchestra and chorus, in which the piano, strings,
wind and singers (first as soloists, then as full chorus) are introduced successively and then
combined to glorious effect.
Call and Response

Of all forms of textural variety, the most ancient and widespread is the alternation of a soloist
(leader) and a chorus (congregation). There is scarcely a tribe in the remotest corners of the world
where it isn't found. It's absolutely fundamental throughout Africa, and remains one of the
central features of African-American religious music, and indeed of early and not-so-early jazz.
In almost every musical tradition in the world, dialogue, of one kind or another, plays a central
role. Of all arts, none is more fundamentally communicative than music.
Tonality: The Phenomenon of Key

There is probably no aspect of music harder to describe than so-called 'tonality' or 'key'. Put at
its broadest, it has to do with a kind of tonal solar system in which each note ('planet'), each rung
80 8.558028-29
of the scale (from scala, the Italian word for 'ladder') exists in a fixed and specific relationship to
one particular note ('sun'), which is known as the 'keynote' or 'tonic'. When this planetary system
is based on the note 'C', the music is said to be 'in the key of C'. Each note of the scale has a
different state of 'tension', a different degree of 'unrest' in relation to the key note. And each
arouses a different degree and specifity of expectation in the listener, which the composer can
either resolve or frustrate. Through the use of 'alien' notes, not present in the prevailing scale, the
composer can commute from one solar system, from one 'key', to another. On the way from one
key to another, a sense of stability gives way to a sense of instability, of flux, which is not
resolved until the arrival at the new key. This process of moving from one key to another is
known as 'modulation'.
The Standard Instruments

Musical instruments are categorized in various families: strings, brass, woodwind, percussion
and keyboards.
String Instruments
The most familiar and popular of all string instruments is the violin, the most high-pitched
member of the family, comparable with the soprano amongst vocalists. In most orchestras,
the violins (the most numerous of the instruments) are in two divisions, the first violins and
the second violins. Frequently the two divisions play different parts although there are many cases in
which they play in unison. As a soloist, the violin is the undisputed king of the strings, as
evidenced by the number of concertos and sonatas written for it by composers great and
small.
The least familiar of the strings, as a solo instrument, is the viola, a larger sibling of the violin,
whose lower pitch makes it the equivalent of the alto in vocal music, though it can double as a
tenor. Its solo repertoire is very limited but its role in chamber and orchestral music is central in
8.558028-29 81
every sense.
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The cello is naturally a bass-baritone but can also double (even triple) as a tenor, alto and even
a soprano, playing in the same register as the violin. Its rich tone and huge range make it one
of the most expressive of all instruments. It has a notable but not immense repertoire as a
solo instrument (whether unaccompanied, as in Bach's celebrated suites, or accompanied, as
in a wealth sonatas with harpsichord or piano), but its most extensive repertoire is in the
spheres of chamber and orchestral music.
The Double Bass is just what it sounds. The basso profundo of the strings, it generally doubles
the bass line taken by the cellos in the orchestra and has enjoyed a very limited life as a solo
instrument (the great conductor Serge Koussevitsky was a virtuoso double-bassist).
The Brass
Pride of place here goes to the trumpet, which existed long before the discovery of metals.
Originally fashioned from animal horn and conch shell, it evolved through the centuries to the
sophisticated brass instrument we know today. No instrument until the modern organ could
match its penetrating tone, with its combination of intensity and power. Symbolically, it has
always been associated with masculinity, the trappings of State, and the military.
In addition to its regular use in the orchestra, it has a rich and varied repertoire as a soloist in
concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel and Haydn, among many others (see Naxos 8.550243).
There are several trombones (the treble, the alto, the tenor and bass, corresponding in pitch to
the standard vocal chorus), the most familiar of which are the tenor and bass. Less penetrating in
tone, but not less powerful than the trumpet, its tone is perhaps somewhat mellower. Derived
from the medieval sackbut, its long tubing is expanded and contracted by the use of a slide.
Normally an ensemble instrument, its repertoire includes a number of notable solo concertos
(Naxos 8.553831)
Originally a valveless instrument used in the hunt, the French Horn is notable for its wide tone
range, from the muffled and muted to the blaring and ceremonial. Of all brass instruments, its
81 8.55
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Se<1Som
normal tone is perhaps the mellowest, having an 'autumnal', velvety sound. Its repertoire includes
sonatas with piano, a famous trio by Brahms (Naxos 8.550441) and most famously, the four Horn
Concertos by Mozart (Naxos 8.553592).
A relative newcomer, invented as recently as 1835, the tuba exists in several forms. The bass
tuba has become the standard lowest brass instrument in the orchestra and is widely felt to be
somewhat comical (though not always by its players). Solo works are rare, but include a concerto
by Vaughan Williams.
The Woodwind
The Flute is the only member of the woodwind family played without a reed. It has very ancient
origins and exists even amongst the most primitive cultures in the world, where it is commonly
blown through the nose instead of the mouth. Two kinds of flute are found in the modern
orchestra, and are the highest of the woodwind: the so-called 'transverse' flute, held at right
angles to the player and played by blowing across a hole, and its tiny, shrill cousin, the piccolo.
Although long made of wood, flutes today are more commonly made out of metal. High, bright
and pure in its upper registers, its lowest tones often achieve a sultry, breathy sensuality. Its solo,
chamber and concerto repertoire is extensive, including sonatas, suites and concertos etc. by J.S.
and C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Quantz, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Faure, Debussy,
Prokoviev and Villa Lobos.
Though neither so ancient nor so widespread as the flute's, the oboe's roots go back at least to
early Christian times. Like all double-reed instruments, it originated in the Middle East and has
long been the traditional instrument of the snake-charmer. More penetrating in tone and more
'nasal' in character than the flute, its normal range puts it in the category of the alto or mezzo
soprano compass. Like its deeper-voiced cousin the Cor Anglais (or 'English Horn', which is
neither English nor a horn), it's tone is perhaps the most immediately expressive of all wind
instruments. Bach wrote many of his most poignant and most joyful pieces for the oboe (mainly
8.55 82
in his many cantatas). Its richest solo and chamber repertoire dates mostly from the 18th-century,
and includes concertos, sonatas, quartets etc. by Bach, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello, Mozart,
Schumann and Britten.
A comparative newcomer (end of the seventeenth century), the clarinet family ranges
from bass to high treble. Its tone, though highly variable, is rather like a cross between the
flute and oboe. 'Reedier' (more 'nasal') than the flute and 'fuller' than the oboe, it has a deep,
'autumnal' character. Its chamber and concerto repertoire includes outstanding works by
Mozart (a trio, quintet and concerto), Weber (a quintet and two concertos), Brahms (two
sonatas and a quintet) and Copland.
Actually the basso profundo of the Oboe family, the bassoon and its cousin the contrabassoon
are both double-reed instruments covering most comfortably the bass to tenor range. Less
penetrating and less immediately expressive than the oboe, the bassoon has been type-cast by
some as a kind of buffoon. Among the composers who have proved otherwise, pride of place goes
to Mozart, whose Bassoon Concerto is highly expressive and lyrical.
The French Horn (see Brass) is not, strictly speaking, a member of the woodwind family but it
blends beautifully with the sonorities of the wind and is regularly included in the standard
'woodwind quintet' (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon).
The Saxophone is an authentic hybrid. A brass instrument with the conical tube of an oboe and
the single reed of the clarinet, it resembles in tone a kind of cross between a clarinet and a
trumpet. It has long since become a standard instrument in jazz but only an irregular visitor to the
symphony orchestra. Perhaps its most inspired employment in a 'symphonic' context is 'II
vecchio castello' in Ravel's classic orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.
The Percussion.
The so-called 'kitchen department' of the orchestra, the percussion includes anything that can be
scraped, shaken or struck, from the tambourine to the timpani, from the bongo to the gong.
8.558028-29 83
Essentially a community of drums, it frequently draws on such peripheral instruments as the

triangle, the Chinese blocks and the castanets.
The joint monarchs of the 'symphonic' percussion are the kettledrums, also known as the
timpani. With their great copper bowls and their expansive, gleaming 'skins', they look as
magisterial and imposing as they sound. Other drums in common use are the side or snare drum
- smallish, cylindrical and with strings (snares) stretched across one of its two parchment surfaces
for added brilliance - and the bass drum (the largest of the family, similar in construction to the
side drum but without the 'snares'). The lightest and potentially the most versatile of the drums is
the tambourine - a small, shallow wooden hoop, covered on one side with parchment or plastic,
and loosely fitted with circular, metal 'jingles'. Played only with the hand and fingers, it may be
struck, stroked with the thumb and shaken. Its origins go back at least to the days of Ancient
Assyria and Egypt, and versions of it have flourished for millennia as far afield as China, India
and Peru.
Other commonly heard percussion instruments include the closely related glockenspiel,
xylophone and marimba, all of which consist of tuned bars, laid out on the model of the
conventional keyboard and played with hand-held hammers (sometimes two in each hand). In the
case of the glockenspiel, the bars are of metal, in the xylophone and marimba, of wood. The
celeste, with its ethereal, music-boxy tinkle, is a form of glockenspiel in which wooden
resonators are fitted beneath the metal bars. It is played by the fingers on a small piano-like
keyboard. Far from ethereal are the cymbals, two plates of brass with leather handles. Held one
in each hand, they are clashed together, seldom more memorably than in Alfred Hitchcock's
film The Man Who Knew Too Much, where they are used to mask the sound of a gun in an
attempted murder during a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.
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The Basic Forms of Music 14
Aria, or Song Form.

'Aria' is simply the Italian word for 'Air' or 'Song' and can be loosely used to refer to any kind of
song, especially in opera. When used to denote a form, it applies in particular to the so-called da
capo aria, prominent in the Baroque and most famously used by Handel in his many Italian
operas. This is basically a simple ternary (A-8-A) form, in which the third part is identical to the
first.
Theme and Variations

There are four basic types of variation:
1) Those in which the original tune is clothed in a sequence of stylistic and textural dresses
(ornamental turns, decorative scale passages, rhythmic, textural and tempo alterations and so on)
while the chief outline of the melody, the original harmonies and the overall form of the theme
are preserved, though the mode (major or minor) may sometimes be altered. The same techniques
of variation can be applied, within the given limits, even to those elements which are retained
from the original theme. The bass line, for instance, may be amplified by a trill, fast or slow, or be
doubled in octaves, and the basic chords of the original harmonies may be 'seasoned' with
decorative notes adjacent to those of the·original. This form is known generally as Melodic
8.558028-29 85
Classics Explained: Vivaldi "flie Four Seasons
Variation. Almost all variation sets of the Classical period (loosely, 1750 to I 820) are of this kind
- Mozart's being perhaps the best known.
2) Those in which the harmonic pattern of the theme is preserved while melody, tempo, rhythm,
texture (chords or intertwining melodic lines) and mode (major/minor) may change beyond
recognition. The most famous keyboard example of this type is the monumental set of 30 by J .S.
Bach popularly known as the Goldberg Variations.
3) Those in which the theme is not a self-sufficient melody but either a constantly reiterated bass
line (above which the upper parts may change), or a series of chords, whose harmonic sequence
and unvarying rhythm is reiterated, unchanged, throughout the composition. This form of
variation is called both Passacaglia and Chaconne (in the Baroque era the two names were used
interchangeably). Unusually, it seems to have been imported to Europe from Mexico in the l6th
century. It enjoyed enormous popularity in the Baroque era, and Handel left two remarkable
keyboard chaconnes, both in G, one sporting no fewer than 63 variations and being in effect a
guided tour through every kind of decorative figuration then in use. The most famous passacaglia
is probably Bach's in C minor for the organ. The most famous chaconne is likewise Bach's, in this
case for unaccompanied violin.
4) Those in which only a part of the original theme (a single melodic phrase, a motto rhythm,
a structural form) is retained as a basis for variation, all other aspects and parts being subject
to very considerable transformation. This type is generally known as Fantasia-variation, and
will often have a recurring theme or fragment that serves as an agent of unity. It reached the
peak of its development in the nineteenth century, particularly in the piano works of Schumann
and Liszt For much of the eighteenth century, variation-making was a fairly stereotyped
business, in which a few standardized techniques were applied in rather the same way as a
86 8.558028-29
shop window
8.558028-29 87
mannequin is draped in a series of skirts, blouses, jackets and trousers as the months go by.
MusicaUy speaking, these include such handy, ready-made garments as the the following:
I) Neighbouring, auxiliary notes (jargon: appogiaturas), or a coUection of same, turning the
original single-note into a decorous, eliptical turn of four)
2) Repeated notes (by means of which 'la la' might be rhythmically livened into 'la-ta-dada, la-ta
dada)
3) Decorative scale passages (whereby a single 'c' might be transformed into an eight-note glide
up or down the octave from one 'c' to another)
4) Ro.lled or rhythmically unfurled chords (jargon: arpeggios, i.e. harp-like), whereby a single
melodic 'c' would be turned into a 'c' chord
5) A breaking up of the original melody in a sequence of right-hand/left-hand alternations (giving
a somewhat hiccuping effect)
6) The simple transformation of a single note into a prolonged trill, with or without a
connecting 'turn' into the next note
7) A change of mode, from major to minor (or more rarely vice versa) for one variation
8) A change of tempo. Most sets will include at least one slow variation
9) A change (almost always in the last variation) of metre, from duple to triple or vice versa)
10) Alternating right-hand and left-hand variations (often followed by variations in both at once)
11) Changes of key (rare, although in Beethoven's so-called Variations in F major, Op. 34 no two
variations are in the same key), and a veritable bucket-full of rhythmic alterations . Mozart's
Variations on 'Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman '(Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' to most ofus) provide an
excellent introduction to these techniques, partly because the theme is so familiar and thus easy
to keep track of. It also provides an excelJent example of the stereotyped layout oflate eighteenth
century keyboard variations.
After Bach's Goldberg Variations, the most famous sets in the repertoire are Beethoven's
Eroica and Diabelli Variations (the latter leaving no variational stone unturned), Brahms's great
8.558028-29 87
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Seasom
sets on themes by Handel, Paganini and Haydn, Schumann's Symphonic Eludes and Carnaval
(an excellent example of 'fantasia-variations'), Liszt's To1en1anz (variations on the medieval
chant Dies irae) for piano and orchestra, Rachmaninov's orchestral Rhapsody on a Theme of
Paganini (the same theme used by Brahms) and Dohnanyi's Variations a Nursery Song ('Twinkle,
twinkle' again). Many more examples may be found within larger, sonata designs. No great
composer was more intensively concerned with variations than Beethoven.
Dance Forms and the Suite

Suite: A common name for any instrumental work in several movements, especially, as in the
Baroque era, a sequence of dances. The standard order of movements in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries was Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue (see below), with a host of
optional extras such as the gavotte and minuet, commonly inserted between the sarabande and
the gigue. The most famous Baroque suites to have become part of the central repertoire are
those from Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, the four orchestral suites by
Bach, as well as his Partitas, 'English' and 'French' Suites for keyboard, three Partitas for
unaccompanied violin, and the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. Later examples include five
by Tchaikovsky (including the famous Nu/cracker Suile), Schumann's Davidsbilndlerliinze,
Grieg's Holberg Suite, Brahm's cycle of 16 Waltzes and Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and
Valses nobles et sentimentales.
The dance forms which have made the most significant contribution to western music are as
follows:
Allemande: A stately dance of German origin, it became the standard opening movement of
the Baroque suite. In moderate tempo, it has four beats to the bar and is generally initiated by
an introductory note (or 'upbeat') before the first accentuated note, producing the same
rhythm as the word 'begin'.
88 8.558028-29
Bouree: A brisk French dance in duple metre, dating from the early seventeenth century and
one of the optional movements of the Baroque suite.
Courante: One of the standard movements of the Baroque suite, the dance exists in several
different forms, differentiated by national traditions. The Italian corrente is in quick, triple time,
with continuous running figures in a straightforward melody-and-accompaniment texture. The
French courante is a more sophisticated version, characterized by a teasing rhythmic ambiguity
(resulting from changes of metre within the dance, so that the emphasis changes from three to
two accented beats in a bar) and a greater contrapuntal weave (the intertwining of two or more
melodic strands).
Gavotte: A seventeenth-century French dance in duple metre, it was one of the most popular
optional numbers in the Baroque suite. Bach was particularly fond ofit and used it frequently. In
moderate tempo and duple metre, it often has a two-note upbeat figure rhythmically analagous to
the word 'tambourine'.
Gigue: Traditionally the final movement in Baroque suites, it concludes virtually of Bach's, and
derives originally from the sixteenth-century 'Irish' or 'English' jig. In triple time, it frequently
uses fugal techniques, dotted rhythms (uneven: long, short-long, short-long) and inversion (the
beginning of the second half often being the opening tune upside down).
Landler: A country cousin (and precursor) of the Viennese waltz, it smacks more of hob-nailed
boots on the village green than of chandeliered ballrooms. It has a somewhat slower pace than the
waltz but is easily confused with it. Mozart, Beethoven, and particularly Schubert, wrote many
examples.
8.558028-29 89
Mazurka: A Polish folk dance (or rather a family of three different but closely related dances), it
frequently sounds like a rather rough-shod form of the waltz, with its triple metre and its
characteristic accent on the second or third beat of each bar. Contrary to widespread belief, it was
cultivated outside Poland well before Chopin, who did more than anyone else to popularize the
dance throughout the Western world. In the eighteenth century it enjoyed considerable favour,
albeit in a very urbanized form, amongst the aristocracy of Europe and by 1830 it had made its
way into the drawing rooms of both Russia and the United States. Chopin alone, however,
transformed it into an art form of the greatest subtlety and range. His 50-odd mazurkas contain
much of his most inspired and original music, and their emotional range is immense.
Minuet: A French dance, originating in the folk tradition, it can be seen as an ancestor of the
waltz, sharing with it the triple metre and moderate tempo, and an elegance born of long
cultivation by the royal courts of Europe. It became one of the most popular optional dances of
the Baroque suite (examples abound in Bach) and is the only one to have survived the decline of
the suite in the middle of the eighteenth century. It was widely used by Mozart, Haydn and
Beethoven, and after lying more or less dormant through most of the nineteenth century, it was
briefly revived by Debussy (Suite bergamasque (1890), Faure, Bart6k, Schoenberg and Ravel
(Menuet antique (1895), Sonatine (1905), Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn (1909)).
Polka: One of the liveliest and most popular dances of all time, it became all the rage, worldwide,
in the nineteenth century. Almost every composer even vaguely associated with dance music
produced polkas in huge number and often with colourful titles like The Youth. Love and Folly
Polka, The Aurora Borealis Polka, The Eclipse Polka, The Daydream Polka, The Flirtation Polka
and so on.
Polonaise: Like the mazurka, the Polonaise was originally a sung dance, or rather a whole family
90 8.558028-29
of them, and by the late sixteenth century it had found its way out of its native Poland and into
neighbouring countries, becoming particularly popular in Scandinavia. It remained, however, in
the realm of folk music and might have continued in relative obscurity for centuries if it hadn't
been taken up by the Polish nobility, in whose hands it began rapidly to evolve into the distinctive
and representative dance it is today. Its most outstanding feature is its insistent, rather martial
rhythmic motto, and it was this purely musical property that recommended it to non-Poles such
as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, Field and Schumann. It fell to the Polish-born
Chopin, to infuse the form with a nationalism which resounds to this day. In his hands the
polonaise became a blazing, patriotic tone-poem in which the fearsome, the tender and the
grandiose combined to unique effect and lifted it into the highest realms of art.
Sarabande: A stately dance of Spanish origin, it became the standard slow movement of the
Baroque suite, and is thus present in all of Bach's and Handel's fully-fledged suites. In triple
metre, its most obvious characteristic is an accent or prolonged tone on the second beat of
each bar. Although there is no hint of such things in its Baroque manifestation, it began life
as a wild and wanton love dance. As one seventeenth-century treatise put it, 'it is a dance and
song so lascivious in its words, and so ugly in its movements, that it is enough to inflame even very
honest people.' After a hundred years or so of neglect, the sarabande staged a modest
comeback in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when its champions included
Brahms, Debussy
(Pour le piano, Images, Hommage a Rameau), Satie (Trois sarabandes) Busoni (Sarabande und
Cortege. Op. 5I), Saint-Saens, Reynaldo Hahn, Albert Roussel, Germaine Tailleferre and Henry
Brant (Two Sarabandesfor Keyboard, 1931).
Waltz: Very probably the most famous dance in the world, it has attracted composers of almost
every kind since its meteoric rise in the _early nineteenth century. The composers who have
8.558028-29 91
contributed most to the waltz repertoire are the several members of the Strauss family, but there
92 8.558028-29
are many less opulent waltzes by Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and Ravel. Like many
folk dances, it's a dance in triple time with a characteristic emphasis on the second beat.
Emanating originally from Austria and Southern Germany, the taste for it swept across
Europe like a virus is and was soon as at home in Paris as in Vienna.
Sonata, String Quartet, Concerto and Symphony.

Broadly speaking, these are all essentially the same form, although the concerto generally has
three movements, the symphony four, and the string quartet (and all other forms of chamber
music) a mixture of the two. The overall layout of the Concerto and most Sonatas consists of a
fast (or fastish) opening movement (normally in 'Sonata' form), a central slow movement and a
quick finale (often a Rondo). In the case of the symphony and the four-movement sonata, the
'extra' movement is almost always a Minuet or a Scherzo, and the finale (last movement) a
Rondo.
Sonata Form
Also known as 'Sonata-Allegro. and 'First Movement' form, this was the dominant form
throughout the second half of the eighteenth century and the first third of the nineteenth. It is
basically a ternary (three-part) design in which the last part is a repeat of the first (as in the Da
capo aria, but with one very important difference: while the first section is cast in two contrasting
keys, the third remains in the key of the tonic (the key of the movement as a wbole).
The three sections of the standard Sonata Form are called Exposition, Development and
Recapitulation.
The Exposition, which may be prefaced by a slow Introduction, is based on the
complementary tensions of two 'opposing' keys. Each key-group generally has its own
themes, but this contrast is of secondary importance (many of Haydn's sonata movements are
based on a single theme, which passes through various adventures on its voyages from key
92 8.558028-29
to key. In
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movements in the major mode, the secondary key is almost invariably the dominant. When the
key of the movement is in the minor mode, the secondary key will almost always be the relative
major. The Exposition always ends in the secondary key, never on the tonic. In most sonata-form
movements, the main themes of the two key-groups will also be of a contrasting character. If the
first main theme is blustery or military, the second, in the complementary key, is Likely to be
more serene and contemplative. The Development is altogether more free and unpredictable. In
most cases, true to its name, it takes themes or ideas from the Exposition and 'develops' them. Or
it may ignore the themes of the Exposition altogether, as Mozart often does. What it will have is a
notably increased sense of harmonic instability, drifting, or in some cases, struggling, through a
number of different keys before delivering us back to the tonic for the Recapitulation.
Since the Recapitulation lacks the tonal tensions of the Exposition, the themes themselves, now
all in the same key, take on a new relationship. In its prescribed resolution of family (tonal)
conflicts, Sonata Form may be seen as the most Utopian of all musical structures.
Rondo
A movement in which the main theme, always given out at the beginning, makes repeated
appearances, interspersed with contrasting sections known as 'episodes'. At its simplest
(when the episodes are more or less identical), the form can be summarised by the
formula A-B-A-B-A, though in most rondos the episodes are different in each case: A-B-A-
C-A. There are also many rondos with more episodes (A-B-A-C-A-D-A etc.). The form
appears both as a self-contained work in its own right and as a movement (usually the last) of
a sonata, symphony or concerto.
Fugue
An imitative work in several overlappinll parts or 'voices' (the name applies irrespective of
whether the fugue is vocal or instrumental). Fugue derives from the same principle as the canon,
94 8.558028-29
or common round, though it can be immeasurably more complicated. More of a technique

than a fixed form, it begins with a solo tune (known as the 'subject'). On the completion of this tune
(or melodic fragment - there are some fugues based on a mere four notes), the second voice
enters with an 'answer' (the same tune, but in a different, complementary key). While the
second voice is presenting the theme ('subject'), the first continues with a new tune (known as
a 'countersubject'). In the overlapping scheme of things this is equivalent to the second phrase
of a round or canon ('Dormez vous' in Frere Jacques, 'See how they run' in Three Blind Mice). When
subject and countersubject complete their dovetailed counterpoint, another 'voice' enters with
its own statement of the subject. Voice 2 now repeats Voice l's countersubject, while Voice I
introduces a new countersubject. And so it goes. There are fugues with as many as six
'voices'.
The first section of the fugue (known as the 'exposition') is complete when all voices have
stated the theme (subject) in its entirety.
There now follows a section (known as an 'episode') in which the various voices combine in
free counterpoint, but without any full statements of the subject in any voice. These episodes
alternate with sections which do contain full statements of the subject, though the latter are not
identical with the exposition. In these sections, the voices may enter in a quite different order and
in different keys. The subject may also appear in inversion (upside down) or in retrograde
(backwards),just as it may appear in note values which are twice as slow or twice as fast the
original (augmentation, diminution). Fugue is not so much a form as a principle of composition.
Theoretically, it could carry on indefinitely. There is often something arbitrary about the ending of
a fugue.
Fugue is also the ultimate in musical conversation and debate. In a fugue, or any polyphonic
work or passage, voices have the capacity, unique to music, of speaking all at once with no loss
of clarity. It is a myth that fugues are by definition 'boring', 'academic' and 'cerebral'. The man
who described fugue as 'a piece in which the voices come in one by one and the audience leave
8.558028-29 95
one by one' had no idea of what fun he was missing. Even as a game of 'spot the theme', fugue is
an entertainment as well as an art form.
96 8.558028-29
Symbolic Summary of Form Types.
Binary Form:
In a major key: A B
In a minor key: Tonic to Dominant Dominant to Tonic
Tonic to Relative Major Relative major to Tonic
Ternary Form:
In a major key: A B C
In a minor key: Tonic to Dominant Free Dominant to Tonic
Tonic to Relative Free Return to Tonic
Rondo Forms: Major
Al B A2
A B Theme Episode 1 Theme
Main Theme Episode 1
Al C A2
A B Theme Episode 2 Theme
Main Theme Episode 1
Exposition Development Recapitulation

Main Theme(s) in Tonic Harmonic fluidity Basically a re-run of
Transition (modulation) the Exposition, but
Secondary Theme(s) in without
Dominant modulation to another key
Codetta
8.558028-29 97
98 8.558028-29
Glossary 15
accelerando
getting faster
accidental
a flat, sharp or 'natural' not present in the prevailing scale
adagio
slow
agitate
turbulent, agitated
Alberti bass
a stylized accompaniment popular in the later eighteenth century, it is
based on the triad, 'spelled out' in the order bottom-top-middle-top (as
in C-G-E-G etc.)
allegretto
moderately fast, generally rather slower than Allegro
allegro
fast, but not excessively
allemande
traditionally the first movement of a Baroque suite - a dignified dance in
4/4 time, generally at a moderate tempo
alto the second highest voice in a choir
andante slowish, at a moderate walking pace
aria
solo song (also called 'air'), generally as part of an opera or oratorio
arpeggio
a chord spelled out, one note at a time, either from bottom to top or vice
versa (C-E-G-C; F A-C-F etc.)
articulation
the joining together or separation of notes, to form specific groups of
8.558028-29 99
Classics Explained: Vivaldi TTie Four Seasons
notes; when notes are separated, that's to say when slivers of silence
appear between them, the effect is often of the intake of breath, and like
the intake of breath before speech it heightens anticipation of what is to
follow; when they are joined together, the effect is of words spoken in the
expenditure of a single breath (see also 'Legato', 'Staccato' and
'Portamento')
augmentation the expansion of note-values, generally to twice their original length
bar, measure the visual division of metre into successive units, marked off on the page
by vertical lines; thus in a triple metre - (the grouping of music into units
of three, as in 3/4, 3/8 etc.) - the three main beats will always be
accommodated in the space between two vertical lines
bass the lowest , deepest part of the musical texture
beat the unit of pulse (the underlying 'throb' of the music)
binary a simple 2-part form (A:B), Part I generally moving from the tonic (home
key) to the dominant (secondary key), Part 2 moving from the
dominant back to the tonic
cadence a coming to rest on a particular note or key, as in the standard 'Amen'
at the end of a hymn
cadenza a relatively brief, often showy solo of improvisatory character in the
context of a concerto, operatic aria or other orchestral form; in
concertos, it usually heralds the orchestral close to a movement, generally
the first
canon an imitative device like the common round (Frere Jacques, Three Blind
Mice, London's Burning) in which the same tune comes in, overlappingly,
at staggered intervals of time
cantabile song-like, singingly
98 8.558028-29
Classics Explained: Vivaldi TTie Four Seasons
cantata a work in several movements for accompanied voice or voices (from the
Latin 'cantare', to sing)
chorale a generally simple (and usually Protestant) congregational hymn; almost
all of Bach's many cantatas end with a chorale; chorales are also
frequently used as a basis for instrumental variations
chord basically any simultaneous combination of three or more notes; chords
are analagous to words, just as the notes which make them up are
analagous to letters
chromatic notes (and the using of notes) which are not contained in the standard
'diatonic' scales which form the basis of most western music; in the scale
of C major (which uses only the white keys of the piano) every black key
is 'chromatic'
clef a symbol which indicates the positioning of notes on the staff; thus the C
lef shows the placement of Middle C, the G clef (better known as 'treble
clef) the location of G above Middle C, and the F-clef (bass) the
positioning of F below Middle-C
coda an extra section following the expected close of a work or movement by
way of a final flourish
codetta a small coda
concerto grosso a popular Baroque form based on the alternation of orchestra (known in
this context as the ripieno or concerto) and a small group of 'soloists'
(concertino); the most famous examples are Bach's six Brandenburg
Concertos
concerto a work for solo instrument and orchestra, generally in three movements
(fast-slow-fast) ,
continuo a form of accompaniment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in
8.558028-29 99
Classics Explained: Vivaldi The Four Sea.mm
which a keyboard instrument, usually a harpsichord, harmonizes the bass

line played by the cello
contrapuntal see 'Counterpoint'
counterpoint the interweaving of separate 'horizontal' melodic lines, as opposed to
the accompaniment of a top-line ('horizontal') melody by a series of
('vertical') chords
counter-tenor a male alto, using a falsetto voice, which seldom bears any resemblance to
the singer's speaking voice
crescendo getting louder
cross-rhythms see Polyrhythm
decrescendo see Diminuendo
diminuendo getting softer
development section the middle section in a Sonata Form, normally characterized by
movement through several keys (see Sonata in 'Basic Forms')
diatonic using only the scale-steps of the prevailing key notes of the regular scale
diminution the contraction of note-values, normally to half their original length
dotted rhythm a 'jagged' pattern of sharply distinguished longer and shorter notes, the
long, accented note being followed by a short, unaccented one, or the
other way around; examples are the openings of the Marseillaise and The
Star-Spangled Banner; better still, The Battle Hymn of the Republic:
'Mine eyes have seen the glo-ry of the co-ming of the - Lord'
double-stopping the playing of two notes simultaneously on a stringed instrument
duple rhythm any rhythm based on units of two beats, or multiples thereof
dynamics the gradations of softness and loudness, and the terms which indicate
them (pianissimo, fortissimo etc.)
exposition the first section in Sonata Form, in which the main themes and their
8.558028-29
relationships are first presented

fantasy, fantasia a free form, often of an improvisatory nature, following the composer's
fancy rather than any pre-ordained structures; but there are some
Fantasies, like Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Schumann's Fantasia in
C for the piano, which are tightly integrated works incorporating fully
fledged Sonata forms, scherzos, fugues etc.
finale a generic term for 'last movement'
Oat a note lowered by a semi-tone from its 'natural' position, i.e. the nearest
lower neighbour of most notes in a diatonic scale
forte, fortissimo loud, very loud
fugue, fugal (see under 'Basic Forms' above)
glissando literally, 'gliding': a sliding between any two notes, producing
something of a 'siren' effect. A famous example is the clarinet glissando at
the start of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
gregorian chant see 'Plainchant'
ground bass a short bass pattern repeated throughout a section or entire piece ; a
famous example is Dido's Lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
harmony, harmonic the simultaneous sounding of notes to make a chord; harmonies (chords)
often serve as expressive or atmospheric 'adjectives', describing or giving
added meaning to the notes of a melody, which, in turn, might be likened
to nouns and verbs
harmonics comparable to the falsetto voice of the male alto, or counter-tenor, the
term refers to the production on an instrument, generally a stringed
instrument, of pitches far above its natural compass; thus the naturally
baritonal cello can play in the same register as a violin, though the
character of the so nd is generally very different
8.558028-29 101
homophonic see 'Homophony'

homophony when all parts move at once, giving the effect of a melody (the successive
top notes) accompanied by chords
interval the distance in pitch between two notes, heard either simultaneously or
successively; the sounding of the first two notes of a scale is therefore
described as a major or minor ·second', the sounding of the first and third
notes a major or minor 'third', etc.
largo slow, broad, serious
legato smooth, connected, the sound of one note 'touching' the sound of the
next; as though in one breath
major see 'Modes'
measure see 'Bar'
metre, metrical the grouping together of beats in recurrent units of two, three, four, six
etc. Metre is the pulse of music
minor see 'Modes'
modes the names given to the particular arrangement of notes within a scale;
every key in western classical music has two versions, the major and the
minor mode; the decisive factor is the size of the interval between the key
note (the tonic, the foundation on which scales are built) and the third
degree of the scale; ifit is compounded of two whole tones [as in C- E (C
D/ D-E)], the mode is major; if the third tone is made up of one and a half
tones (C to E flat), the mode is minor; in general, the minor mode is
darker, more 'serious', more moody, more obviously dramatic than the
major; the so-called Church Modes prevalent in the Middle Ages are
made up of various combinations of major and minor and are less
dynamically 'directed' in character; these appear only rarely in music
102 8.558028-29
since the Baroque (c. 1600-1750) and have generally been used by
composers to create some kind of archaic effect
modulate, modulation the movement from one key to another, generally involving at least one
pivotal chord common to both keys
motif, motive a kind of musical acorn; a melodic/rhythmical figure too brief to
constitute a proper theme, but one on which themes are built; a perfect
example is the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: ta-ta-ta dab;
natural ta-ta-ta dab
nocturne not a sharp or flat
'Invented' by the Irish composer John Field and exalted by Chopin; a
simple ternary (A-B-A) form, its outer sections consist of a long-spun
melody of a generally 'dreamy' sort, supported by a flowing, arpeggio
based accompaniment; the Middle section (in some ways analgous to
the Development in a Sonata form) is normally more turbulent and
octave harmonically unstable
the simultaneous sounding of any note with its nearest namesake, up or
down (C to C, F to F etc.); the effect is an enrichment, through increased
oratorio mass and variety of pitch, of either note as sounded by itself
an extended choral/orchestral setting of religious texts in a dramatic
ostinato and semi-operatic fashion; the most famous example is Handel's
pedal point Messiah
an obsessively repeated rhythm or other musical figure
pentatonic the sustaining of a single note (normally the bass) while other parts move
above and around it
phrase based on a five-note, whole-tone scale, as in the music of the Orient
(analagous to the black keys of the piano)
8.558028-29 103
a smallish group f
notes (generally
accommodated by
the exhalation of a
single breath)
which form a unit
of melody, as in
'God save our
104 8.558028-29
Gracious Queen...' and 'My Country, 'tis of thee...'

phrasing the apportionment of the above
piano, p1amss1mo soft, Very soft
pizzicato plucked strings
plainchant, plainsong also known as Gregorian Chant; a type of unaccompanied singing using
one of the Church modes and sung in a 'free' rhythm dictated by the
natural rhythm of the words
polyphony music with interweaving parts
polyrhythm a combination comprising strikingly different rhythms, often of two or
more different metres
prelude literally, a piece which precedes and introduces another piece (as in the
standard 'Prelude and Fugue'); however, the name has been applied
(most famously by Bach, Chopin and Debussy) to describe free-standing
short pieces, often of a semi-improvisatory nature
presto very fast
recapitulation the third and final section in Sonata Form, which repeats the Exposition
but with the tensions of 'rival' keys resolved
recitative especially charactersitic of the baroque era, in an oratorio or opera; it is a
short narrative section normally sung by a solo voice accompanied by
continuo chords, usually preceeding an aria; the rhythm is in a free style,
being set by the words
resolution when a suspension or dissonance comes to rest
rest a measured 'silence' (or to be more accurate, a suspension of sound) in an
instrumental or vocal part
rhapsody the name given to a number of highly disparate works in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries comprising a single-movement of a generally
104 8.558028-29
Romantic and mostly virtuosic character; the best known examples are
Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
rhythm that aspect of music concerned with duration and accent; notes may be of
many contrasting lengths and derive much of their character and
definition from patterns of accentuation and emphasis determined by the
composer
ripieno (concerto) the orchestral part in a Concerto Grosso
ritardando, ritenuto getting slower
ritornello a theme or section for orchestra recurring in different keys between solo
passages in an aria or concerto
rondo (see under "Basic Forms' )
scale from the Italian word scala ('ladder'); a series of adjacent, 'stepwise' notes
(A-B-C-D-E-F etc.), moving up or down; these 'ladders' provide the basic
cast of characters from which melodies are made and keys established
sharp a note raised by a semi-tone from its 'natural' position, i.e. the nearest
upper neighbour of most notes in a diatonic scale
sonata form (see under 'Basic Forms' above)
sotto voce quiet, as though in a whisper
staccato separated; the opposite of legato
syncopation accents falling on irregular beats, generally giving a 'swinging' feel as in
much of jazz
tempo the speed of the music
tonality (see 'Brief Guide to the Composer's Tools' above)
tone colour, timbre that property of sound which distinguishes a horn from a piano, a violin
from a xylophone e\c.
tremolo Italian term for 'trembling', 'shaking'; a rapid reiteration of a single note
8.558028-29 105
through back-and-forth movements of the bow; equally, the rapid and

repeated alternation of two notes
triad a three note chord, especially those including the root, third and fifth of a
scale (C-E-G, A-C-E etc.)
trill The rapid alternation of two adjacent notes (as in c-d-c-d-c-d-c-d-c-d-c-d-c
d-c etc.)
triplets in duple metre, a grouping (or groupings) of three notes in the space of
two (as in 'One, Two/ Buckle-my shoe')
una corda literally, 'one string'; using the soft pedal on the piano
unison the simultaneous sounding of a single note, as in the congregational
singing of a hymn
vibrato a rapid, regular Ouctuation in volume, giving the note a 'throbbing' effect
variation any decorative or otherwise purposeful alteration of a note, rhythm,

timbre etc. (see 'Basic Forms' above)
vivace, vivacissimo fast and lively; extremely fast and lively
vocalise a wordless piece for solo voice; the most famous example is
Rachmaninov's
waltz (see 'Basic Forms' above)
whole-tone an interval comprising two semitones, as in C-D on the piano; much of
the music of the Orient, as well as numerous folk cultures around the
world, is built on whole-tone scales (See 'Pentatonic' above)
xylophone (see 'Standard Instruments' above)
106 8.558028-29
8.558028-29 107
108 8.558028-29
8.558028-29 109
An Introduction to ...
VIVALDI The Four Seasons
written and narrated by Jeremy Siepmann
The Four Seasons is one of the most popular classical works ever written -
four violin concertos. each captrning moods and illustrating stories related to
a specific time of year. After 300 years, their melodies continue to thrill and
seduce, their harmonies to haunt and excite, their tone-painting to ravish the
ear and inspire the imagination. But how do they work their particular
magic? Why have they succeeded where others have failed? In this voyage
of discovery, each movement is preceded by a lively exploration of its
means, with the help of many examples and useful analogies.
ENCLOSED:
TWO CDs with COMPLETE WORK
■
ANALYSIS
■
NUMEROUS EXAMPLES
■
COMPANION BOOKLET with DETAILED HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
■
COMPLETE SPOKEN TEXT
Played by Takako Nishizaki, Capella Istropolitana. Stephen Gunzenhauser
< I.
S S I < S I·. X I' I.
I :\
I·. D
\
\
A series exploring, in words and music, the major classical works of the concert
hall. In an accessible and lively manner, Jeremy Siepmann looks at the history and
the form of the great masterpieces of western music.
All rights reserved. Unauthorised public performance, broadcasting and copying of this
compact disc prohibited.® 2001 HNH International Ltd© 2001 HNH International Ltd

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CLASSICS EXPLAINED

THE COMPOSER AND THE WORK

Vivaldi: A Biographical Sketch 2

bassoon ... There

The Work's Reception in It's Own Time and Ours 4

Essay: Concerto and Contrast 5

The Four Seasons: Track List 6

CD 1: FIRST CONCERTO: SPRING

l1BJ Scene setting and Main Theme of Second Movement 1:56

SECOND CONCERTO: 'SUMMER'

CD 2: THIRD CONCERTO: 'AUTUMN

FOURTH CONCERTO: 'WINTER'

The sky is covered with dark clouds,

Then does the meadow, in full flower,

Rejoicing in the pastoral bagpipes,

First Movement: Allegro

Second Movement: Largo

descending notes, which again get the echo treatment [MUSIC].

The Four Seasons: Summer

Zephyr breathes gently but, contested,

His weary limbs have no repose, goaded by

Alas, his fears prove all too grounded,

First Movement: Allegro non molto/Allegro

Second Movement: Adagio

Third Movement: Presto

scales from the upper strings [MUSIC].

CD 2: The Four Seasons: Autumn

Each one renounces dance and song

The hunters at dawn go to the hunt,

Already dismay'd and exhausted, from the great noise

First Movement: Allegro

Second Movement: Adagio Motto

Third Movement: Allegro

another ploy borrowed from the first movement [MUSIC].

The Four Seasons: Winter

lfwe move quickly, we slip and fall to earth,

First Movement: Allegro non molto

Far from ending, as he began,

Second Movement: Largo

Third Movement: Allegro

8 Challenges to the Interpreter

Part I Solo restatement of Theme One but without pitch change

SECOND MOVEMENT See main text

EPISODE I Rapid figuration in violin depicts the biting wind

Directed and Undirected Listening

Dialogue and Characterisation

might.' 'I might.')

Music and Memory

Music and Emotion

Browning, 'has his solitude peopled at once.'

Music and Structure

12 What Music Isn't: Music and Snobbery

13 A Brief Guide to the Composer's Tools

loud : soft (frequently employed as an echo effect)

Call and Response

Tonality: The Phenomenon of Key

The Standard Instruments

Essentially a community of drums, it frequently draws on such peripheral instruments as the

The Basic Forms of Music 14

Aria, or Song Form.

Theme and Variations

Dance Forms and the Suite

Sonata, String Quartet, Concerto and Symphony.

or common round, though it can be immeasurably more complicated. More of a technique