Vivaldi's 'Spring' is used again in ' The Incredible Shrinking Adventure '. This is Big Jet's 4th appearance and his final appearance of Season 1. This episode article is. Start studying #Four Seasons, Spring by Vivaldi. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.
Biography
Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Msu, montana state university, wind energy, montana, wind application center, wac, stillwater, vivaldi springtime. This best-known Vivaldi work for violin and strings is what we need this time of year. Composed in the early 1720s by the red-haired priest from Venice, the concerto “Spring” (followed by 'Summer,' 'Autumn' and 'Winter,' of course) is awash in a Vivaldi sunshine of strings in three movements: slow, fast and slow.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 to 1741) was born and lived in Italy, and was a BAROQUE style composer and violinist. Vivaldi had very bright red hair and was nicknamed 'the Red Priest.'
His dad, Giovanni, was a barber before becoming a professional violinist. He taught his son probably at a very young age to play violin. As an adult, Vivaldi became a Catholic priest. However, his asthma kept him from saying the mass. He then went to teach in an orphanage for girls, and composed lots of music for them; for example Vivaldi wrote over 400 concertos for his students.
While Vivaldi's music was quite popular in his lifetime, towards his final years his music fell out of popularity, and he died as a pauper.
Listen to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons!
The most well-known piece of music he wrote was a set of violin concertos titled 'The Four Seasons.' The concertos are accompanied by sonnetes (poems) that depict the seasons. Some people think that Vivaldi wrote the sonnets himself.
For each season, there are three parts. The parts are titled with Italian words such as Allegro (joyfully) or Largo (slowly). These Italian words indicate the TEMPO of the piece—how fast or slow it should be played.
Read the poem that goes with each part of The Four Seasons, and then listen to the part. Does the music resemble or portray the things in the sonnets? Does the music match the seasons?
You can also draw on paper what the music makes you 'see' in your mind. Compare your thoughts and feelings with those around you.
In the audio files below for the Four Seasons, John Harrison plays the lead violin. I don't have information about the other musicians. Licensed by CC BY-SA 3.0.
Spring
1. Allegro (fast, joyfully)
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Children: Can you hear the joy of spring and the birds? Can you then hear the thunderstorm? And can you lastly hear the birds again?
2. Largo (slowly)
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herder sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Children: Does the music sound restful, like someone is sleeping?
3. Allegro (fast, joyfully)
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.
Children: In this music, we first hear bagpipes. Later on, there are musical passages as if someone is dancing.
Summer
1. Allegro non molto (not very quickly)
Under a hard Season, fired up by the Sun
Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine
We hear the cuckoo's voice; then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air... but threatening north wind sweeps them suddenly aside.
The shepherd trembles, fearing violent storms and his fate.
Children: This piece starts out slow, as if animals and people are 'languishing' in the unpleasant, hot sun. In the middle the music is a bit faster: there is the soft breeze. The loudest part is like the threatening north wind. Later on, the violin plays alone, singing like birds. Then suddenly the music sounds fearful: the shepherd trembles. Can you hear all that?
2. Adagio e piano - Presto e forte (slow at ease and soft - very fast and loud)
The fear of lightning and fierce thunder
robs his tired limbs of rest,
as gnats and flies buzz furiously around.
Children: Does the music sound like someone is resting, but occasionally feels fearful?
3. Presto (very fast)
Alas, his fears were justified
The Heavens thunders and roar and majestically
Cuts the head off the wheat and damages the grain.
Children: Does the music sound like thunder and lightning?
Autumn
1. Allegro (fast and joyfully)
Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances,
The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.
And fired up by Bacchus' liquor, many end their revelry in sleep.
Children: This music starts out joyful and very happy, because the farmers are celebrating the harvest with songs and dances. Can you hear the parts where a few of them get tired and fall asleep (music slows down)?
2. Adagio molto (very slow)
Each one renounces dance and song,
the mild air is pleasant,
and the season invites ever-increasingly
to savour a sweet slumber.
Children: Can you hear how this music sounds like 'sweet slumber' (deep sleep)?
3. Allegro (fast and joyful)
The hunters emerge at the new dawn,
And with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting
The beast flees and they follow its trail;
Terrified and tired of the great noise
Of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens
Languidly to flee, but harried, dies.
Children: The music starts out march-like, when the hunters and dogs and horns are going boldly to hunt. When you hear the violin playing solo (alone), it portrays the beast that is fleeing and being hunted.
Winter
1. Allegro non molto (not very quickly)
To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.
Children: In the beginning, the music sounds like trembling because of the cold. The parts where the violin plays solo, it's like someone running and stamping their feet to keep warm. Does any part of the music sound like chattering teeth?
2. Largo (very slowly)
We move to the fire and contented peace,
while the rain outside pours in sheets.
Children: When you listen, can you imagine staying warm and peaceful in front of the fireplace?
3. Allegro (fast & joyful)
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors...
this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.
Children: The music starts out carefully, cautiously, and not very fast, like treading on ice. Can you hear it getting faster—someone hastening and hurrying? Near the end we hear the north wind and its chill...
Here's also one video, an excerpt from Antonio Vivaldi's famous Concerto for 2 Cellos, Strings & Continuo in G minor. It is performed by New Trinity Baroque orchestra (on instruments similar to those used in Vivaldi's time), and directed from the harpsichord by Predrag Gosta.
I hope you liked the song/lesson!
I'd also like to introduce you to my favorite: 24K Gold Music - dynamic musical showband performing many genres and styles of music!
WRTI 90.1 brings you music to welcome the season of warm breezes, the lark, the snowdrop, and crocus. Here are 10 of our favorite works that sound like the season of renewal.
1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Violin Sonata No. 5, Op. 24 (“Spring”). Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 is often referred to as his “Spring Sonata.” Who knows what Beethoven would of thought of that; his sweet sonata wasn’t given the name “Spring Sonata” until after his death in 1827. Never mind. It aptly expresses the lively and playful qualities of the season.
2. Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons La Primavera (“Spring”). How can we omit it! This best-known Vivaldi work for violin and strings is what we need this time of year. Composed in the early 1720s by the red-haired priest from Venice, the concerto “Spring” (followed by 'Summer,' 'Autumn' and 'Winter,' of course) is awash in a Vivaldi sunshine of strings in three movements: slow, fast and slow.
3. Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, The Seasons (ballet). Russian composer Alexander Glazunov and Russian Imperial Ballet choreographer Marius Petipa worked together to present the ballet Les Saisons for the last Russian tzar, Nicholas II and his court at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1900. At the start of the second part of this four-scene ballet, a harp signals the arrival of spring.
4. Edvard Grieg, “To Spring” from the composer’s Lyric Pieces. Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg wrote a voluminous collection of over 60 short piano solos, and a few orchestrated works. They’re contained in the ten 'sets' of his Lyric Pieces and his “To Spring” (Til Våren) in Book III is among the most famous. Here’s a beautiful interpretation by the late Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.
Hear Grieg play his composition in this recording from 1903.
5. Johann Strauss II, “Frühlingsstimmen” (“Voices of Spring”; with voice ad lib) Op. 410. This famous waltz originally featured a coloratura soprano who sings of “a million little voices of spring.” The orchestral or piano versions of this waltz are what you’ll hear more often these days, but first there was “the music of the breeze that comes humming through the trees.”
6. Christian Sinding, “Frühlingsrauschen” (“Rustle of Spring”). “Rustle of Spring” is the most popular piece of music ever composed by Norwegian Christian Sinding. It was a favorite among amateur pianists in the first half of the 1900's. The sheet music for Shindig’s short romantic melody would have graced piano stands in parlors, and then living rooms.
7. Frederick Delius “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.” Englishman Frederick Delius composed this tone poem, first performed in Leipzig, Germany in 1913. Can you hear the cuckoos calling? They’re woven into the piece subtly at the beginning and prominently in the middle. The cuckoo flies back in the form of clarinets at the end as the countryside awakens to spring.
8. Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, “Spring.” The German composer and music critic Robert Schumann conceived this first symphony (“Spring”) with the season of rejuvenation in mind. His marriage to pianist Clara Wieck in 1840 touched off an intense period of creativity and “Spring” was among the many compositions he wrote during that time. (The wedding took place after he and Clara prevailed in a “marriage permission” lawsuit against her pianist father!) Schumann’s new wife encouraged him to turn from piano to orchestral music and his triumphant “Spring” debuted in 1841.
9. Claude Debussy, Symphonic Suite “Printemps.” Printemps (“Spring”) began as a piano duet sent by French composer Debussy to his benefactors. They wanted a progress report after awarding him a scholarship. Debussy was suppose to submit a full orchestral score, but in 1887 he claimed the score had been destroyed in a fire. Roughly a quarter century later Debussy added an orchestra score and his friend Henri Büser helped complete it with the humming chorus and piano we hear today.
10. Giuseppe Verdi, “Four Seasons” from the opera The Sicilian Vespers. Verdi’s “Four Seasons” ballet comes in the middle of an opera about the 13th century Sicilian uprising against the French occupation of Palermo, Italy. True! His vocal creation was originally performed in French for the Paris Opera. The ballet interlude was a nod to nineteenth century French opera tradition, in which a ballet opened the third act.
In this YouTube video, Paris Opera Ballet dancers begin in winter white. Pastel spring arrives roughly 8 minutes 15 seconds into the video. We hear the flute welcoming the first shoots of new growth. Verdi’s “Four Seasons” ballet was reborn when American choreographer Jerome Robbins took it in hand.
Spring Vivaldi
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