Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) The Four Seasons. Vivaldi was born in Venice, son of a barber who became a violinist. He trained to be a priest, and in his mid-twenties was appointed violin master at an orphanage for girls. During his stay there he composed a number of pieces, including concertos for various instruments. 27 of them were for the bassoon, and their difficulty bears evidence not only of Vivaldi’s compositional skill, but also the fact that the young ladies were very proficient musicians.
By 1718 he had become a travelling composer, writing and producing operas in Italy and Germany. In the mid 1720s he was writing operas in Rome, and it was during this period that he wrote his most famous composition, Le quattro stagioni. It is, of course, a piece of program music, imitating the features of the seasons—ice, wind, thunder and so on—but it is also an early form of concerto, for solo violin and strings.
Baroque music, which is now extremely popular, was neglected in favour of Romantic music through the 19th and early 20th century, and perhaps surprisingly, the first recording of The Four Seasons was not made until 1955. Now of course it practically defines what people think of as the sound of the baroque, and it has been transcribed for all sorts of instrumental combinations. Its enduring popularity is shown by its appearance in popular culture—TV commercials and the like.
Ástor Piazzolla (1921-92) Cuatro Estaciones de Porteñas, (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.) Piazzolla was born in Argentina, son of Italian immigrant parents, and grew up playing tangos in nightclubs on the bandoneón, a kind of small accordion. After winning a composition contest, he moved to Paris to study with the famous teacher Nadia Boulanger, who advised him to throw away his symphonies and concertos, and concentrate on what he knew best. He took this advice, returned to Argentina, and wrote mostly tangos, or music influenced by the tango and by jazz idiom, for the rest of his life.
His Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, (a porteño is someone born in Buenos Aires) composed between 1964 and 1970, is a set of four tangos depicting the seasons, beginning with summer, though Vivaldi’s begins with spring.
- Bill Morrison
