Vivaldi The Four Seasons Concerto Analysis

In the midst of the Baroque era, Antonio Vivaldi helped give rise to a new style of music, a concerto. More importantly, his work began the search for a new identity of a concerto. An identity that is known as a concerto grosso. Several of Vivaldi’s movements consisted of more than one soloist supported by an orchestra. However, the piece I am going to discuss only consists of a single soloist and his or her accompaniment. Vivaldi composed a series containing four separate parts, but I am only relating to the second one. I am covering Summer from The Four Seasons concerto. Summer was not exactly what I pictured. I believed it would portray meadows, birds, sunshine, and perhaps a body of water. To my surprise, it is actually quite a dark piece. The majority of the piece revolves around what seems like a thunderstorm. There are three movements within Summer; each section leads to the next scene. The first section, “Allegro non molto", is supposed to be performed fast . . . not too fast. The opening of this section incorporates lines of mimicking chords that slowly fade. Then, there is a slight pause of silence. And it quickly accelerates to an abrupt sound. The contrast of the timbres are evident between the cellos and the
It serves well for the smoothness of the melodies and the firmness of the crescendos. He wanted to vividly illustrate a story; therefore, this concerto is also under the category of Program Music. Providing an array of ability for the violin, Vivaldi led way to all of the possibilities one particular instrument may provide. His movements revolved around a ritornello form, always bringing back the beginning stanzas. The movements were mainly homophonic, but had places of polyphony and monophony as well. He definitely painted the picture he desired to paint with The Four Seasons. It is evident that Vivaldi took the violin past its limits and created something truly