The music
Four Seasons explained for beginners
What Vivaldi's Four Seasons are, how each of the four concertos tells its season in music, and what to listen for before the concert starts.
Book the Four Seasons concert ↗Quick answer
The Four Seasons are four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, each depicting a season. Each has three movements, fast, slow, fast, and was published with a sonnet that says what the music paints: birdsong and a storm, heat and hail, a harvest and a hunt, ice and a fire. The four concertos together take about 40 to 43 minutes.
Four concertos, one set
Antonio Vivaldi wrote four violin concertos that each put one season into music, and the four are known together as The Four Seasons. Wikipedia dates them to roughly 1718 to 1723, when he was chapel master in Mantua, and says they came out in Amsterdam in 1725 inside a twelve-concerto collection, his Op. 8. It calls them his most famous work. All four back to back last about 40 to 43 minutes.
Music with a story
Alongside the music came four sonnets, perhaps by Vivaldi, describing what each season should suggest. Every concerto moves fast, slow, fast, and every sonnet divides into three parts to match. Because the music carries a story, the set counts as an early and detailed case of programme music. Even the score has captions, such as the barking dog in Spring, so the picture is written into the notes.
Why programme music mattered
Printing sonnets with concertos was unusual at the time. Wikipedia says Vivaldi worked hard to tie the music to the verses, setting the poetic lines straight into the notation. The music pictures flowing creeks, singing birds, a shepherd with his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, drunken dancers, hunting parties, frozen landscapes and warm winter fires. Wikipedia calls this a revolution in musical conception, and it keeps the set easy to follow for someone hearing it for the first time.
Spring
Spring is the Concerto No. 1 in E major. The sonnet greets the season with festive birdsong and murmuring streams, then thunderstorms that roar and fade before the birds sing again. In the slow movement a goatherd sleeps in a flowery meadow with his faithful dog beside him, and the dog's bark is heard in the viola section. The finale is a rustic dance of nymphs and shepherds to the sound of bagpipes.
Summer
Summer is the Concerto No. 2 in G minor. Under a hard sun, the sonnet says, people and flocks languish, and Vivaldi marks the first movement with the note languor caused by the heat. The cuckoo, turtledove and goldfinch sing, then a sudden north wind sweeps in. The slow movement has the shepherd's fear of a storm and the buzz of flies, and the finale breaks into thunder and hail that cuts down the wheat.
Autumn
Autumn is the Concerto No. 3 in F major. Peasants celebrate a good harvest with songs and dances, and fired up by Bacchus's liquor many of them end the party asleep, a moment Vivaldi labels with the drunkards have fallen asleep. The finale is a dawn hunt with horns, guns and dogs, and a beast that flees, is wounded and dies. It is the most openly pictorial of the four.
Winter
Winter is the Concerto No. 4 in F minor. The sonnet opens with shivering in icy snow, stamping feet and chattering teeth. The slow movement moves indoors to a fire while rain falls outside. In the finale people walk carefully on ice, slip, fall and hurry on, and the winds go to war. The last line of the sonnet says that winter still brings its own delights, and the concerto ends on that turn.
What to listen for
You do not need the sonnets to enjoy the music, but a few details reward attention. Listen for the birds, each characterised differently, and the barking dog in the viola section in Spring; the languor of the heat in Summer's first movement; the drunkards falling asleep in Autumn's slow movement; and the stamping feet and chattering teeth that open Winter. A small band with a harpsichord keeps each of these details clear, because every part can be heard.
Frequently asked questions
How long do the four concertos last?
About 40 to 43 minutes for all four, according to Wikipedia. Each is roughly 9 to 11 minutes.
Who wrote the sonnets?
They were published with the concertos and are possibly by Vivaldi himself. Scholars debate whether the music or the sonnets came first.
How many movements does each concerto have?
Three, fast, slow, fast. Each movement matches one of the three sections of that season's sonnet.
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