Analysis Of Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

When looking throughout the history of music, there is no name with a larger impact than Bach. Writing over 200 pieces throughout his 65 year life. Many people know the names of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms; but only a select few know the specifics about these land mark composers. “Most would say that Beethoven should have been named called ocean instead of brook” Bach in German. During this papers I will be giving a brief look into the life of one of the most prolific composer that ever lived.

Antonio Vivaldi is a famous Italian baroque composer, known by most Suzuki violin students who study his concertos or by audiences everywhere who have heard and love his composition of the Four Seasons.  Having grown up as students of the Suzuki Violin Method, we recognize this composer and have experience performing his pieces.  In addition to his many concertos written for solo violin, Vivaldi composed many concertos intended to be performed by two solo violins, accompanied by a small orchestra.  Because we are both violinists, we chose to analyze the second movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, RV 522, included in his L’Estro Armonico works.

This paper discusses Mozart's life, his compositions and his importance to the world and the world of music. It explains how Mozart's music is still some of the most popular classical music played today and his life is still studied because his music is so well known and liked.

Giovanni Gabrieli was a legendary composer of the 16th century. As the fundamental structure and ideas of the Catholic Church were being challenged by the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, Gabrieli’s compositions were given the opportunity to be successful and influential to music in the coming centuries. His works helped to transform not only church music of the Catholic Church, but also secular music as well. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote significant works that ultimately shaped the rise of the symphony, including the development of purely instrumental works, the art of orchestration, and the concerto style. Without his innovations in composition, it is arguable that instrumental music would not have developed as quickly, or developed

A great interest in hearing only instrumental music tell the story without text arise. The development of the concerto grosso which is a small unit of soloists against a full orchestra (Wright, 7-4) brought about one of the most popular and recognized concerto pieces, Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E Major (the “Spring). As one of

Vivaldi composed a multitude of works, comprising over 350 solo concertos with over 230 of those concertos for violin alone (Talbot). He worked at the Pieta, an orphanage and school for girls (Hanning & Burkholder 265). Vivaldi’s concertos imbued qualities of fresh melodies, clarity of form, and color between the solo and orchestra (Hanning & Burkholder 264). His Concerto in A Minor, Op. 3, No. 6. demonstrates the virtuosity of the violin. The idea of the concerto is still upheld today, showcasing the soloist’s ability.

This paper is an academic critique of two performances of “Four Seasons Spring MVI” by Antonio Vivaldi. The essay is writing about compare and contrast between the two performances of two conductors, talking about their own ways to direct the soloists and the orchestra during the performance. Also, tell about my personal thinking and feelings about each performance. Soloist who performs in the first performance named Isaac Stern, he is along wirth a conductor named Zubin Mehta and the orchestra is Israeli Philharmmic. While in the second performance appearance of the soloist Itzhak Perlman, also a conductor and has the same orchestra with the first performance. There are three main issues in both performances are the tempo different tempo when the orchestra plays, the instruments used and the actions of the conductors.

When one thinks of impressionistic composers, it is only natural for Claude Debussy to be part of the subject. However, it is rare that impressionism and classical form are mentioned within the same breath. For that reason, it is necessary to remind oneself that the free-flowing music of the contemporary only exists by standing on the shoulders of the rigidly methodical music that came before it. Claude Debussy’s First Violin Sonata exemplifies this beautifully. Though the harmonic language is that of parallelisms and unstable key centers, motivically, the piece is balanced around the same Sonata Principal that governed Debussy’s forefathers, going back to Beethoven and Haydn.

These ideas of contrasting musical forces stems back to Lully’s operas in which some of the dances contained a solo section for wind trio accompanied my the string section. At this time in Rome composers were focusing on the orchestral concerto, then later the concerto and eventually the concerto grosso. Although the composer Giuseppe Torelli who was a major figure of the Bologna school composed pieces for all there types of genres which included the first concertos ever published. He wrote concertos for trumpet, violin and six concerto grossi. Most of his concertos were written in the fast-slow-fast form which was inspired by the Italian opera overture, which then became the standard pattern for the concerto. By the late seventeenth century Italian composers all shared a common goal; to write music that was pleasing to listen to, emotional connective and a show case for audiences to behold the abilities and virtuosity of the

The early piano sonatas of Beethoven deserve special mention. Although his first published examples of concertos and trios and the first two symphonies are beneath the masterpieces of Mozart and Haydn, the piano sonatas bear an unmistakably Beethovian stamp: grandiose in scope and length, and innovative in their range of expression. The sonatas were able to move expression from terrible rage to peals of laughter to deep depression so suddenly. Capturing this unpredictable style in his music, a new freedom of expression which broke the bounds of Classical ideals, was to position Beethoven as a disturbed man in the minds of some of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he was to be seen as the father of Romanticism and the single most important innovator of music in the minds of those after him. (Bookspan 27).

In the 1700s, Antonio Vivaldi composed his highly accredited Four Seasons concerto. The autumn movement in this concerto follows the allegro-adagio-allegro pattern. Vivaldi provided sonnets to go along with each movement to explain what the true meanings are. As a group, we felt it was necessary to provide all of our reactions to the piece. This allowed us to interpret what each of the others were visualizing throughout the composition. Some of our opinions may have varied, but overall the general mood of the piece allowed us each to have the same emotions toward the Autumn movement of the Four Seasons.

In what period was the work composed? List three aspects of the musical style of this period that apply to this work.

Vivaldi was a classical composer in the early 1700’s, whose works where played for Kings, Queens and the Pope. His works can still be heard today in movies like pretty woman, white chicks, on TV advertisements and as background music in restaurants. Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos, one of his most popular being “spring” by The Four Seasons. This specific piece is optimistic and full of hope. While listening to “Spring” of the Four Seasons along with researching Vivaldi’s history the hypothesis can be made that Vivaldi’s upbringing and the way in which he chose to live his life had an immense impact on his creation of The Four Seasons.

The string family and a piano are the only instruments played in Vivaldi: The Four Season - Winter. Instruments noted from the string family are: violins, cellos and a double bass and a concertmaster. Many times thought the concerto Winter the group plays at two tempos: allegro and largo. Although there were three separate movements: first an allegro, which transition into largo and then back to allegro. The concertmaster was a female and she played in both sharp and lax ways. Her tempos of sharp movements are considered to be allegros, while her lax movement is largo. She also played the same melodies during group movements. But she additionally played striking solo movements. The last transition to the allegro movement is a complete solo

The solo concerto was a feature piece for a solo instrument accompanied by a contrasting ensemble, the biggest difference between the concerto grosso and the solo concerto was the contrast between the solo and the tutti sections were even longer and much more detailed. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that the solo concerto became popular, the most well known composer of the solo concerto was Antonio Vivaldi. It was Vivaldi’s clean melodies, expertise with solo passages and the contrast in timbre between the orchestra and solo parts that his concertos are among the most famous of all other composers. Vivaldi wrote over five hundred concertos mostly for his own instrument the violin, but also for the trumpet, cello, oboe flute and bassoon. Most of these concertos were